Femara®, letrozole, is anti cancer drug, a form of hormone therapy known as an aromatase inhibitor, which works by reducing the amount of estrogen in postmenopausal women.
This medicine is a hormonal (or “endocrine”) breast cancer treatment. Growth of breast cancer is frequently stimulated by oestrogens, which are female sex hormones. Femara reduces the amount of oestrogen by blocking an enzyme (“aromatase”) involved in the production of oestrogens and may therefore block the growth of breast cancers that need oestrogen to grow. As a consequence, tumour cells slow down or stop growing and/or spreading to other parts of the body.
Indications:
- Adjuvant treatment of early-stage breast cancer in postmenopausal women.
- Extended adjuvant treatment of early-stage breast cancer in postmenopausal women following standard adjuvant
tamoxifen therapy. - Treatment of advanced or metastatic breast cancer in postmenopausal women.
- Treatment of advanced breast cancer in postmenopausal women with disease progression following treatment with
antioestrogens.
