The study involved 1,918 women who had received five years of AI therapy prior to study participation. Six months after the conclusion of the initial AI therapy, study participants either began treatment with a placebo or AI therapy in the form of letrozole.
Five years into the study, the disease-free survival rate for patients receiving letrozole was 95 percent. For those administered placebos, the rate was 91 percent. At six years, 165 events involving cancer recurrence or the occurrence of contralateral breast cancer were recorded — 67 events observed in letrozole patients and 98 events in participants receiving placebos.
Lead author Paul Goss, MD, PhD, director of breast cancer research at Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, said, “This is the first study to show benefit of extending AI beyond five years, resulting in 34 percent reduction in recurrences…unlike many anticancer therapies, AIs are readily accessible around the world, and therefore our results will further improve the outcome of many women with breast cancer.”
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