As women join STAR, boards membership will change to include STAR participants. The committee, which also meets semiannually, is charged with providing overall administrative oversight of the trial. This group was also the first to demonstrate that adjuvant therapy could alter the natural history of breast cancer, thus increasing survival rates. The Study of Tamoxifen and Raloxifene, known as STAR, is one of the largest breast cancer prevention trials ever undertaken. STAR is also the first trial to compare a drug proven to reduce the chance of developing breast cancer with another drug that has the potential to reduce breast cancer risk.
All participants receive one or the other drug for five years.
There are more than 400 STAR sites in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Canada. Every woman considering STAR will have her risk of breast cancer assessed by a computerized program that will show her risk compares to other women her age. Breast cancer risk is based on age, family history of the disease, and personal medical history. Tamoxifen has been approved by the FDA to treat women with breast cancer for more than 20 years and has been in clinical trials for about 30 years. This drug was approved by the FDA to prevent osteoporosis in postmenopausal women in December 1997 and has been under study for about five years.