Benefits and Risks of Hormonal therapy (Tamoxifen) in Women with Positive Hormones Receptors Breast Cancer

Abstract

Aim: We studied the benefits and risks of tamoxifen therapy in women with positive hormonal receptors breast cancer. Methods: A total of 170 women with breast cancer diagnosed between 2012 and 2013 at the National Oncology Institute, Sabratha, Libya were included. The demographic, clinicopathological data, treatment and follow-up were collected from the patient’s files as well as data regarding the adverse event of therapy. Results: The mean age of the patients was 45.1 years (range 21-80 years). Of them, 127 patients had hormonal dependent tumour, and tamoxifen as hormonal therapy was given to 52.4% of them in a period of less than 5 years, while 22.3℅ of the patients were used tamoxifen for more than 5 years. Forty three patients had hormonal independent tumor and no hormonal therapy was given for those patients. The median follow-up duration was 47.2 months (range, 5-125 months). At the end of follow up period, 101 (59.4%) patients were alive, 60 (35.5%) had experienced disease recurrence, and 69 (40.6%) had died. Using Kaplan-Meier survival curves showed that a shorter survival was associated with hormonal receptors negative breast cancer patients who not received tamoxifen, While, patients with hormonal receptors positive tumors and received tamoxifen were associated with a longer survival (p<0.0001). Regarding the toxicity of tamoxifen therapy, the most frequent adverse events were sweating and hot flashes (22.4% and 14.7 % respectively) followed by weight gain, endometrial hyperplasia (11.8 % and 6.5 % respectively). No women experienced serious adverse events such as thromboembolic, cerebrovascular complications and endometrial carcinoma. Conclusion: Tamoxifen as hormonal therapy in patients with hormonal dependent breast cancer was associated with a longer overall survival as well as may be safe and valid.