Towards tailored hormonal therapy
An update on adjuvant hormonal therapies for
early-stage breast cancer

Barbara Walley, MD, FRCPC

Hormonal therapy for treatment of breast cancer was one of the first “targeted” treatments developed for cancer: testing of estrogen and progesterone receptor status of tumours, to determine if hormonal therapy would be beneficial, has become standard practice.

 

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Top-line summary
Hormonal therapy for breast cancer patients is one of the oldest targeted treatments in cancer care. Many issues about their optimal use remain to be resolved, however. For postmenopausal women, questions include the relative benefits and drawbacks of using tamoxifen vs the aromatase inhibitors vs both sequentially, and optimal duration of therapy. Research into the effect of individual women’s genetically determined metabolism on the efficacy and side effects of hormonal therapies may contribute important information to establish optimal treatment for this group. For breast cancers in premenopausal women, the use of hormonal therapy in combination with ovarian ablation is under investigation, including the potential role of aromatase inhibitors.
 
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