Aromatase inhibitors substantially reduce risk of death in ER-positive breast cancer

the Oncology Nurse Advisor take:

According to a study published in the journal The Lancet, researchers have found that aromatase inhibitors significantly decrease the risk of death in postmenopausal women with estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer.

For the meta-analysis, researchers analyzed data from 31,920 postmenopausal women with estrogen receptor-positive early breast cancer. Researchers compared the impact of aromatase inhibitor treatment with tamoxifen treatment on breast cancer recurrence, breast cancer mortality, death without recurrence, and all-cause mortality.

Results showed that aromatase inhibitors reduce recurrence rates by approximately 30% more than with tamoxifen. Researchers found that 5 years of aromatase inhibitor treatment decreases 10-year breast cancer mortality by about 15% more than with 5 years of tamoxifen, and by about 40% more compared with no endocrine treatment at all.

"Our global collaboration has revealed that the risk of postmenopausal women with the most common form of breast cancer dying of their disease is reduced by 40% by taking five years of an aromatase inhibitor - a significantly greater protection than that offered by tamoxifen," lead author Professor Mitch Dowsett, Head of the Academic Department of Biochemistry and of the Centre for Molecular Pathology at The Royal Marsden and The Institute of Cancer Research, London, said.