Standard of care and controversies in the adjuvant endocrine treatment of hormone-responsive early breast cancer

Abstract

Hormone-responsive early breast cancer is a highly curable disease. In premenopausal women, tamoxifen (TAM) is still the standard treatment. Nowadays, up to 10 years of TAM can be safely administered, especially in women who remain premenopausal. Patients who are considered to be perimenopausal should be initially treated like premenopausal patients. Depending on their serum hormone levels, these patients can be safely switched to an aromatase inhibitor (AI) therapy once the estradiol (E2) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) levels prove the established postmenopausal status. In postmenopausal women, several sequences of endocrine treatment are available. The AI therapy can be induced upfront or sequentially by switching from Tam to AI and vice versa. Extended endocrine therapy, by adding up to 5 years of letrozole after 5 years of TAM, has also been proven to be beneficial in certain patient subgroups. Genotyping of cytochromes such as CYP2D6 did not have any added value in identifying patients who are at higher risk of recurrence. Nevertheless, in all patients the side effects need to be given high consideration. New strategies developed to overcome endocrine resistance are tested in clinical studies. New co-administered drugs such as specific inhibitors of mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), Src, or phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) do improve endocrine responsiveness in meta-static disease and will eventually be introduced in the treatment of early breast cancer.