SABCS: Interrupting Endocrine Therapy Does Not Pose Breast Cancer Recurrence Risk

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 14, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- For young women with early-stage hormone receptor (HR)-positive breast cancer (BC) desiring pregnancy, temporary interruption of endocrine therapy does not confer a greater short-term risk for recurrence than not interrupting therapy, according to a study presented at the annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, held from Dec. 6 to 10 in San Antonio.

Ann Partridge, M.D., from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, and colleagues assessed the risk for BC relapse associated with endocrine therapy interruption for two years to achieve pregnancy among 518 women aged 42 years or younger with stage I to III HR-positive BC.

The researchers found that tamoxifen alone was the most prescribed endocrine therapy (41.7 percent), followed by tamoxifen plus ovarian function suppression (35.7 percent). During a median follow-up of 41 months, there were 44 breast cancer-free interval (BCFI) events, not exceeding the prespecified safety threshold of 46 events. Over three years, the BCFI failure percent was 8.9 percent, which was similar to the 9.2 percent estimated in the comparative external control cohort from the SOFT/TEXT trials. Nearly three-quarters of women (74.0 percent) had at least one pregnancy and 63.8 percent had at least one live birth (365 babies born). More than three-quarters of participants (76.3 percent) resumed endocrine therapy (half within 26 months), 8.3 percent had a BCFI event/death before therapy resumption, and 15.4 percent had not resumed therapy yet.

"The POSITIVE Trial provides important data to support young women with HR-positive early breast cancer who are interested in a pregnancy and taking a break from endocrine therapy to pursue one," Partridge said in a statement.

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