Cytologic endometrial surveillance in tamoxifen-treated women

The authors report the results of a study conducted on 136 patients affected by breast cancer under treatment with tamoxifen at a daily dose of 20 mg who underwent a strict follow-up including endometrial surveillance. The cytologic evaluation of the endometrium was performed on smears obtained by the endocyte sampling. The results were in accordance with what is reported in the literature. Forty cases presented with hyperplasia which was atypical in two cases. Only in one case did histology show a well differentiated adenocarcinoma. In 25 cases the endometrium resulted to be proliferative in accordance with the effect of tamoxifen, while the remaining 67 cases were atrophic. The investigation was not possible in four cases due to stenosis. In our study the endocyte sampler resulted to be an economic, simple and painless cytologic device, suitable for clinical use because of its low incidence of false positives.