The U.S. government plans to warn doctors that the interaction between the breast-cancer drug tamoxifen and popular antidepressants such as Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft increases the risk of breast cancer recurrence, the Wall Street Journal reported.
A study that included about 1,300 women found that the drug combination increases the risk of breast cancer recurrence from the normal rate of 7.5 percent to 16 percent. As a result of the findings, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it would alert doctors to the negative interaction, the Journal said.
The study, led by researchers at Medco Health Solutions Inc., found that tamoxifen does not have this negative association with all antidepressants. Women who took drugs such as Celexa, Lexapro and Luvox didn't have a statistically higher rate of breast cancer recurrence.
The findings were released last weekend at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
Tamoxifen is used to prevent the return of estrogen-dependent tumors, one of the most common types of breast cancer.