[Adjuvant antihormonal therapy for postmenopausal women with primary operable breast cancer]

Adjuvant hormonal therapy results in substantial improvements in disease-free and overall survival for women with operable breast cancer. Many randomised trials of adjuvant tamoxifen have been published, and an updated overview of their results is presented in this paper. The third-generation aromatase inhibitors have recently been compared with tamoxifen. These studies are also reviewed in this paper. The Danish Breast Cancer Cooperative Group recommends adjuvant hormonal therapy consisting of tamoxifen for 2.5 years followed by the aromatase inhibitor for 2.5 years, or 5 years of the aromatase inhibitor for women with contraindications to tamoxifen.