Women who have had and have survived breast cancer now receive growing public support. Groups of such women have fueled the demand for improved ways to increase the breast cancer survival rates. In the United States, the first strong push for more research on ways to prevent the recurrence of breast cancer came directly from the White House.

In the mid-1970s Betty Ford, then serving as the First Lady, announced that she had breast cancer. She helped to motivate all of the women who wanted to seek an increase in the breast cancer survival rates. She encouraged an examination of the degree to which a mastectomy, as opposed to a lumpectomy, could guarantee a woman a better chance of surviving breast cancer. Studies showed that a simple lumpectomy was often an adequate way to take-out the cancer and to prevent breast cancer recurrence.

Due to the efforts of many research scientists, medicine has expanded its emphasis on the treatment of cancer to include the ways by which medical science can improve breast cancer survival rates. In the 1990s clinical trials conducted by the National Cancer Institute produced much information concerning how to fight breast cancer recurrence.

Two of those trails led to the marketing of new chemoprevention drugs. These are chemicals that work to keep cancer out of the body. By making these drugs available to the public, those on the front line against cancer hope to improve the breast cancer survival rates.

One such trial had some subjects take a drug called tamoxifen, while the control group received a placebo. Tamoxifen works by preventing the binding of estrogen to cancer-prone body tissues. The clinical trail showed that tamoxifen provided an excellent tool for striving towards a marked increase in breast cancer survival rates.

The results from this first clinical trial showed how tamoxifen could help women who were recovering from surgery for the removal of breast cancer.  The surprisingly good results from this trial led to a look at how tamoxifen could prevent cancer in healthy women. Women were very lucky that tamoxifen proved so effective at increasing breast cancer survival rates. A drug tested for its ability to prevent prostate cancer proved much less effective.

Be assured, scientists will not stop there research now. They will continue to look for more ways to improve breast cancer survival rates. They will not doubt look more closely at ways to achieve cancer prevention by using dietary supplements. If the scientists succeed in their efforts, then women will be able to improve breast cancer survival rates by adding such supplements to their diet.

In the meantime, all women need to maintain their use of the known methods for the early detection of breast cancer. At the same time, all women and men must continue their support for continued research into the reason for breast cancer recurrence. The dual use of those devices should help to decrease the number of families that have been impacted by breast cancer.