LEIDEN, The Netherlands, Oct. 11 -- Young women with estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer may not get as much benefit from chemotherapy as those with estrogen receptor-negative disease, researchers said.
Women with estrogen receptor-positive tumors survived longer than those with estrogen receptor-negative tumors overall (P=0.02), but the survival advantage disappeared for those who received chemotherapy as their only adjuvant treatment (P=0.63), according to a pooled retrospective analysis of four trials reported online in the journal Breast Cancer Research.
"These results confirm that chemotherapy alone cannot be considered optimal adjuvant systemic treatment in breast cancer patients 40 years old or younger with hormone receptor-positive tumors," wrote Cornelis van de Velde, M.D., Ph.D., of Leiden University Medical Center here, and colleagues.
Because the findings support previous meta-analyses, "the next obvious statement would be that these patients with estrogen receptor-positive tumors really should get hormonal therapy," commented Ellen Chuang, M.D., of Cornell University Medical Center in New York, who was not involved in the study.
