Breast Cancer Health Center

Study Shows No Stroke Risk With Tamoxifen

Tamoxifen Experts Weigh In continued...

She advises women over age 60 to see an internal medicine doctor regularly and to keep an eye on their stroke and other health risk factors. Factors that increase heart disease -- high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and smoking -- also increase the risk of stroke.

"Patients should be relieved about tamoxifen," says Paul Tartter, MD, professor of surgery at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Comprehensive Breast Center and Columbia University College Physicians and Surgeons in New York. "This rings with my clinical experience. I've got several thousand women in my practice and I rarely, rarely see a stroke. In fact, I don't remember ever seeing a stroke in someone taking tamoxifen."

The chemotherapy finding "worries me a little bit," Tartter tells WebMD. "It also surprises me, because someone getting chemotherapy would have low platelet count." Since platelets help the blood clot, having fewer of them should theoretically provide an anticlotting effect, which would help prevent stroke, he says. "This needs to be investigated further to find the biological explanation for it."