More than 46% of women with stage 1 or 2 breast cancer chose to continue endocrine therapy after five years, a recent study found.
The study, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, examined data from 831 women ages 20 to 79 who were diagnosed with stage 1 or 2 breast cancer between 2014 and 2015 drawn from the Georgia and Los Angeles County Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results registries. Women were surveyed at seven months and again at six years postdiagnosis.
Adjuvant endocrine therapy is recommended to extend beyond five years of stage 2 breast cancer and stage 1, but with less consensus. Researchers asked women about their decision to continue endocrine therapy and the reasons behind it.
Researchers found that 591 women completed or were completing five years of endocrine therapy. Among those, 46.9% decided to continue therapy — 39.4% with stage 1 and 62.4% with stage 2.
For those with stage 1 who decided to continue, their primary reasons were worry about recurrence, desire for more extensive treatment and primary care physician participation.
