Dr. Jack Cuzick is director of the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine and head of the Center for Cancer Prevention at the Queen Mary University of London, where he holds the title of John Snow Professor of Epidemiology.
He is internationally known for his research showing tamoxifen can be used to treat estrogen-receptor-positive breast cancer, as well as his work to help develop the Tyrer-Cuzick breast cancer risk evaluation tool, which helps women and their doctors estimate a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer.
At the 2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, he presented the latest results from the International Breast Cancer Intervention Study II Prevention Trial, looking at whether 5 years of Arimidex (chemical name: anastrozole) can reduce breast cancer risk in postmenopausal women who have higher-than-average risk of the disease but have not been diagnosed.
Listen to the podcast to hear Dr. Cuzick discuss:

how much Arimidex reduced risk after about 11 years of follow up

why Arimidex is better than tamoxifen at reducing risk in high-risk postmenopausal women

the side effects seen in the study and why side effect rates were the same in women who took Arimidex and women who took a placebo

why it’s unlikely that Arimidex will be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for this use, but why doctors will be able to prescribe it off-label