Tamoxifen why five years

Still, aromatase inhibitors can cause a number of troubling side effects, including hot flashes, joint pain, and bone pain. In some cases, the side effects are so bothersome that women stop taking the medicine early. Aromatase inhibitors also can cause osteoporosis, which increases the risk of breaking a bone.

The researchers who did this study wanted to see if taking 5 years of Femara offered more benefits than 2 to 3 years of Femara following 2 to 3 years of tamoxifen for postmenopausal women diagnosed with early-stage hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer.

Conducted at 69 hospitals in Italy, the study included 2, postmenopausal women diagnosed with stage I to stage III hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer. All the women had surgery to remove the breast cancer and then took tamoxifen for 2 to 3 years. After the women completed 2 to 3 years of tamoxifen, the researchers randomly assigned them to one of two treatment groups:. Half the women were followed for more than In both groups, side effects were the main reason the women stopped treatment early.

The year disease-free rate is the percentage of women who were alive with no cancer recurrence after 12 years. Aromatase inhibitors are preferred over tamoxifen for postmenopausal women because a number of studies have shown that postmenopausal women treated with an aromatase inhibitor have a slightly lower recurrence risk than women treated with tamoxifen.

The researchers then looked to see if recurrence risk was lower and survival was better in either group of women. The researchers also looked to see if 10 years of tamoxifen caused side effects in any of the women.

This difference was significant, which means that it was likely because of the extra 5 years of tamoxifen and not just due to chance. Like any hormonal therapy medicine, tamoxifen can cause side effects, some of them serious. Hot flashes and night sweats are common tamoxifen side effects. In rare cases, tamoxifen can cause dangerous blood clots. Tamoxifen also may increase the risk of endometrial cancer in some women. In addition, the effects of 5 years versus more than 5 years of tamoxifen therapy were compared.

To compare 5 years with more than 5 years of tamoxifen therapy, data relating to all patients reassigned to an additional 5 years of the drug were combined. Patients who were not reassigned to either tamoxifen or placebo continued to be followed in the study. Survival, disease-free survival, and distant disease-free survival relating to failure at distant sites were estimated by use of the Kaplan-Meier method; differences between the treatment groups were assessed by use of the logrank test.

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