Sir, – Every day, more than five women are diagnosed with breast cancer in the North East.

So, as October is breast cancer awareness month, it’s the ideal time to highlight a groundbreaking breast cancer prevention trial called IBIS-2.

Funded by Cancer Research UK, IBIS-2 is a worldwide study investigating whether the drug anastrozole could help women who are at high risk of developing the disease.

We urgently need to boost recruitment and we are asking North-East women to help us.

IBIS-2 is open to post-menopausal women (who have stopped having regular periods), who are aged between 40-70 years, are not on HRT, and have a family history of breast cancer or other risk factors (such as certain types of non-cancerous breast lumps).

The good news is that early results show the drug could potentially prevent up to 65 per cent of breast cancers in women at high risk of the disease.

So it could be the next big step forward in preventing breast cancer for future generations.

Women wishing to find out if they are eligible to take part in IBIS-2 should visit www.ibis-trials.org or call the IBIS-2 team on 0800-111- 4134 or call Cancer Research UK’s cancer information nurses on 0808 800 4040.

Prof JACK CUZICK Principal Investigator, Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, London