Effect of the gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogue triptorelin on the occurrence of chemotherapy-induced early menopause in premenopausal women with breast cancer: a randomized trial

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Goserelin and Triptorelin, published as a randomized controlled trial.

To determine the effect of the temporary ovarian suppression obtained by administering the gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogue triptorelin during chemotherapy on the incidence of early menopause in young patients with breast cancer undergoing adjuvant or neoadjuvant chemotherapy.

Who Took Part

The study group was 281 patients.

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were adults and middle-aged adults, women only.

The patients were premenopausal women with stage I through III breast cancer who were candidates for adjuvant or neoadjuvant chemotherapy.

The intention-to-treat analysis was performed by including all randomized patients and using imputed values for missing data.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, open-label and parallel-group study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Goserelin and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Everyone knew when Goserelin was being given (open label), which is simpler to run but leaves more room for expectations to affect what is reported.

Groups ran in parallel: each of the patients stayed in one arm throughout.

Before beginning chemotherapy, patients were randomly allocated to receive chemotherapy alone or combined with triptorelin.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Antineoplastic Agents, Antineoplastic Agents, Hormonal, Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols, Breast Neoplasms, Chemotherapy, Adjuvant, Cisplatin and Fluorouracil.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, open-label and parallel-group study of Goserelin and Triptorelin in 281 patients.

Results are reported in around 5 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2011 (JAMA), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Goserelin compound page and the Triptorelin compound page.