Combined treatment with buserelin and tamoxifen in premenopausal metastatic breast cancer: a randomized study

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at Buserelin.

Surgical or medical castration and antiestrogenic treatment with tamoxifen are common endocrine treatments for premenopausal women with breast cancer.

However, tamoxifen therapy induces high levels of plasma estradiol, with unknown long-term effects.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 161 patients were involved.

PubMed indexes the participants as adults and middle-aged adults, women only.

In a three-arm, randomized, prospective trial, from 1988 through 1995, a total of 161 premenopausal patients with advanced breast cancer were randomly assigned to treatment with buserelin, tamoxifen, or both.

Patients with steroid receptor-negative tumors or with tumors of unknown receptor status who had a disease-free interval of less than 2 years were excluded.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized study.

The patients were allocated by chance, so the Buserelin group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Patient and tumor characteristics were well balanced among treatment groups.

All P values are from two-sided tests.

What Was Measured

However, tamoxifen therapy induces high levels of plasma estradiol, with unknown long-term effects.

The subject headings attached to it are Antineoplastic Agents, Hormonal, Breast Neoplasms, Buserelin, Disease-Free Survival, Estradiol, Estrogen Receptor Modulators and Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Buserelin in 161 patients.

Its findings take up roughly 5 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2000 (Journal of the National Cancer Institute), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Buserelin compound page, all human trials.