Superiority of letrozole to tamoxifen in the first-line treatment of advanced breast cancer: evidence from metastatic subgroups and a test of functional ability

Abstract

Purpose: The letrozole study 025 is a large (n = 907), international, double-blind, randomized, phase III trial in postmenopausal women with advanced breast cancer. This subanalysis compares the efficacies of letrozole and tamoxifen as first-line therapy in postmenopausual women with advanced breast cancer according to site of metastatic lesions and Karnofsky Performance Status (KPS).

Materials and methods: Nine hundred seven patients with advanced breast cancer were randomly assigned to once-daily oral letrozole (2.5 mg; Femara; Novartis Pharma AG; Basel, Switzerland) or tamoxifen (20 mg; Tamofen; Leiras OY; Turku, Finland). Time to progression (TTP) was estimated using the Kaplan-Meier product-limit method. Treatments were compared by Cox proportional hazards regression models.

Results: Letrozole treatment significantly prolonged TTP in all subsets of patients: those with nonvisceral metastases, those with visceral metastases without liver involvement, and those with liver metastases. The reduction in risk of progression ranged from 25%, for patients with nonvisceral metastases, to 36%, for patients with liver metastases. The distributions of baseline KPS scores for both treatment groups were similar (57% had KPS scores >/=90). Time to worsening of 20 points or more in KPS score was significantly longer with letrozole than with tamoxifen, but modest numbers of patients experienced such deterioration (letrozole, 20%, tamoxifen, 22%, in patients without visceral metastases; 23%-24% in patients with liver metastases; and letrozole, 14%, tamoxifen, 30%, in patients with visceral metastases without liver involvement).

Conclusion: These data demonstrate the consistent superiority of letrozole over tamoxifen and support the use of letrozole as a new standard of endocrine therapy in postmenopausal women with advanced breast cancer.