Melody A. Cobleigh, MD

As more drugs become available in the HER2 arena, clinicians will be faced with increasing challenges regarding which sequences and combinations of drugs will be the best for their patients. In the era in which we practice, a great deal of this is likely to be dictated by the payers.

In this article, we review the current guidelines for adjuvant endocrine therapy in both premenopausal and postmenopausal women, and we discuss the clinical trials that were used to develop these guidelines.

Dr. Colditz has reviewed the potential hazards of hormone replacement therapy in breast cancer survivors. Let us presume, for the sake of brevity, that his assumptions are correct. With so many risks, why would a breast cancer survivor consider taking hormone replacement, and why would an oncologist prescribe it?