Recruitment into studies assessing optimum duration of treatment must continue

BMJ 1996;312:1036-1037 (20 April)

Letters

Recruitment into studies assessing optimum duration of treatment must continue

EDITOR,--R D Bulbrook's editorial prejudges the issue of theduration of tamoxifen as adjuvant treatment for breast cancer.¹Its conclusions are based on an announcement by the AmericanNational Cancer Institute that the national surgical adjuvantbreast and bowel project trial B-14, which compared five withup to 10 years of tamoxifen, was to be stopped on the adviceof the data monitoring committee. On the basis of unpublisheddata from just over 1500 randomised patients from this and aScottish study² the National Cancer Institute concluded thatits trial would not show a benefit from continuing tamoxifenbeyond five years. Although there was a trend for women to doworse if they continued tamoxifen beyond five years, the numberof events was small and no significant differences were observed.With over half a million women diagnosed as having breast cancerevery year, it does not make sense to base . . . [Full text of this article]

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