Rachel C. Jankowitz, MD

While we continue to be thankful for incremental gains in the treatment of our patients with metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer, much work remains in order to optimize and individualize care.

In this Circling Back feature, authors of the review article “Adjuvant Endocrine Therapy for Breast Cancer: How Long Is Long Enough?” discuss some of the especially interesting points made in the commentaries.

New evidence now supports improved recurrence and breast cancer mortality outcomes with continued tamoxifen for up to 10 years in women of any age, and such long-duration therapy is especially important for women who remain premenopausal after their first 5 years of tamoxifen.

If MGTs could predict which patients were most prone to late recurrence and thus might benefit from extended adjuvant endocrine therapy, it would be a huge advancement in the care and survivorship of our patients. More studies of MGTs are required to clarify their role in evaluating prognosis and predicting response to therapy in breast cancer.