July 17, 2002
For women with node-negative, estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast cancer, addition of chemotherapy after surgery did not improve outcomes over tamoxifen alone, according to results of a randomized trial from the International Breast Cancer Study Group, reported in the July 17 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
However, women should still receive chemotherapy if their tumors are ER-negative.
“I’m hoping [the findings] will cause physicians and research investigators to examine more carefully whether or not these postmenopausal women with node-negative, ER-positive diseases should routinely be offered chemotherapy,” study biostatistician Richard Gelber, PhD, from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts, says in a news release.
Of 1,669 patients recruited from many countries, 73% had ER-positive breast tumors, 23% had ER-negative tumors, and 4% had unknown ER status. All subjects were postmenopausal and had node-negative cancer.
They were randomized to receive either tamoxifen alone or chemotherapy followed by tamoxifen for five years.
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