Annals of Oncology Advance Access originally published online on April 7, 2005
Annals of Oncology 2005 16(5):683-685; doi:10.1093/annonc/mdi167
© 2005 European Society for Medical Oncology
Editorial |
Tailoring a tailored treatment: the importance of fine-tuning on the patient
Department of Medical Oncology, Ospedali Riuniti, Bergamo, Italy
(* Email: carlo.tondini@ospedaliriuniti.bergamo.it)
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Until very recently, 5 years of oral tamoxifen has been the standard of care for adjuvant hormonal treatment of post-menopausal women with endocrine-responsive early breast cancer (EBC) [1
, 2
]. Now things are changing. In January of this year [3
], the ASCO Technology Assessment Panel issued an updated recommendation on the use of aromatase inhibitors (AIs) in this setting. The Panel's conclusions state that The Panel believes that optimal adjuvant hormonal therapy for a postmenopausal woman with receptor-positive breast cancer includes an aromatase inhibitor as initial therapy or after treatment with tamoxifen. Women with breast cancer and their physicians must weigh the risks and benefits of all therapeutic options.
This recommendation has been issued on the basis of early data coming from randomised clinical trials comparing different strategies that include an AI in the treatment of these women. Research strategies have ranged from head-to-head comparison of an AI