A review of adjuvant hormonal therapy in breast cancer

Breast cancer is the most common carcinoma diagnosed in women today excluding non-melanoma skin cancers. It has been well documented that estrogen plays a critical role in its development and is a major target for treatment. For many years, tamoxifen has been the gold standard for adjuvant hormonal therapy in breast cancer patients. With newer products targeting different mechanisms to suppress estrogen production, patients now have many decisions regarding their care. Agents such as luteinizing hormone releasing hormone (LHRH) agonists can suppress ovarian function in premenopausal patients and have been shown to be as effective and even better than chemotherapy (CMF--cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, fluorouracil-containing regimens) in certain patient populations. Tamoxifen continues to be an option as well as toremifene, a similar selective estrogen receptor modulator. With the advent of newer third generation aromatase inhibitors (anastrozole, letrozole and exemestane) toxicities have been documented to be less and in some cases they are more efficacious than the standard, tamoxifen. This article reviews the current data regarding ovarian suppression, ovarian suppression plus tamoxifen, tamoxifen, toremifene, anastrozole, letrozole, and exemestane in the treatment of adjuvant hormonal-sensitive breast cancer.