About Femara

What You Should Know About the Risk of Breast Cancer Degra Returning Versus Tamoxifen

• After surgery, breast cancer returns in about one out of three women with hormone receptor-positive early stage breast cancer.
• Lymph node status and tumor size are two major variables in the risk of breast cancer returning. Other factors may include menopausal status and family history.

Knowledge Is Power

Knowing that your risk of hormone receptor-positive breast cancer returning may be reduced can help empower you to take the necessary steps toward treatment. Talk with your doctor to find out if Femara^® (letrozole) 2.5 mg tablets may be right for you.

The Good News!
In postmenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive early stage breast cancer, in the adjuvant setting, Femara has been shown to help reduce the risk of breast cancer returning versus tamoxifen.

This is based on a treatment duration of 60 months.

Femara^® (letrozole) 2.5 mg tablets are approved for the adjuvant 

following surgery) treatment of postmenopausal women with 

hormonereceptor-positive early stage breast cancer.

Important Safety Information

Femara is only indicated in postmenopausal women. You should not take Femara if you are premenopausal. Your doctor should discuss the need for adequate birth control if you have the potential to become pregnant, if you are not sure of your postmenopausal status, or if you recently became postmenopausal. You should not take Femara if you are pregnant as it may cause harm to an unborn child. You should also discuss with your doctor what to do if you are nursing a child.

The use of Femara may cause decreases in the density of your bones, increases in bone fractures and osteoporosis. Monitoring of the density of your bones may be required.

Some patients taking Femara had an increase in cholesterol. Your doctor may require the monitoring of cholesterol in your blood.

Some women reported fatigue, dizziness and drowsiness with Femara. Until you know how it affects you, use caution before driving or operating machinery.

Some women had moderate, temporary decreases in white blood cell counts. The medical significance of this is not known.

The most serious side effects seen with Femara are bone effects (fractures, decreased bone density and osteoporosis) and increases in cholesterol. Other common side effects seen with Femara include joint pain, nausea, weight decrease, vaginal irritiation, and pain in the extremitites. Other important less commonly reported side effects include blood clots, other cancers, stroke, heart attack and endometrial cancer.

Femara is a once-daily, convenient prescription tablet. Your doctor may tell you to take Femara every other day if you have severe liver disease. Always take your medicine exactly as prescribed by your doctor.

Femara (letrozole)

It's unfortunate, but ultimately true: sometimes, well-meaning physicians make life-threatening and/or life-altering mistakes when they choose to prescribe a medication for an "off label" use. This is exactly what happened to many who were prescribed the drug Femara when Revatio they discovered they were having trouble getting pregnant (though they were otherwise healthy.)

Femara, also called letrozole in its generic form, is indicated for use in those who have breast cancer. Basically, Femara inhibits estrogen and is therefore considered helpful to such patients.

Not surprisingly, given the role that estrogen plays with the indications of Femara, common side effects include hypoestrogenism (which some fear may cause osteoporosis in the long term.)

Though breast cancer treatment is the only Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accepted usage for Femara, many doctors began using it in 2001 "off label" (meaning for uses other than those it was originally intended.) Specifically, physicians began prescribing the drug for women who were having fertility troubles as a means of inducing ovulation.

Even though many doctors still claim that Femara is a safer alternative that the typically-prescribed Clomid (another ovulation inducer), a presentation at the 2005 American Society of Reproductive Medicine Conference suggested that there was a darker side to using the medication in this manner, as birth defects might result from the use of Femara in females who were trying to conceive.

To stem the tide of negative press, Femara's maker, Novartis, sent out letters to physicians in the United States and Canada warning them that the medication had not been approved to induce ovulation. Regardless, many doctors ignored the warnings and clung to the their theory that Femara was a better medication than Clomid (which does carry many side effects.)

As the years have passed, many women have begun to question whether their children's mental or physical birth defects might be a result of their taking Femara to either become pregnant or, unwittingly, while they were pregnant.

As lawyers who are very concerned with "off label" use of drugs such as Femara, we intend to pursue claims against physicians who prescribed the medication to otherwise healthy females who later delivered children with birth defects. Therefore, we encourage you to call us for a no-obligation consultation if the above-mentioned scenario fits your situation.

Together, we can send a strong message to the public while simultaneously getting you the monetary compensation you deserve. Contact our offices today to start the process.