Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Apr:80:104416.
doi: 10.1016/j.breast.2025.104416. Epub 2025 Feb 11.

Side-effects in women treated with adjuvant endocrine therapy for breast cancer

L M Rademaker  1 , R Gal  2 , A M May  1 , M C T Batenburg  3 , F van der Leij  3 , R M Bijlsma  4 , H M Verkooijen  2 , A Doeksen  5 , M F Ernst  6 , D J Evers  7 , C C van der Pol  8 , E M Monninkhof  9
Affiliations

Side-effects in women treated with adjuvant endocrine therapy for breast cancer

L M Rademaker et al. Breast. 2025 Apr.

Abstract

Many women with breast cancer prematurely discontinue adjuvant endocrine therapy, leading to increased mortality. We performed a cross-sectional survey (n = 456) within the Dutch UMBRELLA-cohort to gain insight into the prevalence of side-effects and its association with premature discontinuation. Almost all current endocrine therapy users experienced side-effects (92.7 %), most frequent were vasomotor- and musculoskeletal symptoms. The most reported reason for premature discontinuation was side-effects (88.1 %). Former treatment with chemotherapy was associated with more reported side-effects (97.2 % vs 82.5 %, ORadj 6.31), but less premature discontinuation of endocrine therapy (18.6 % vs 28.6 %, p-value 0.016).

Keywords: Adjuvant therapy; Discontinuation of therapy; ER positive; Endocrine therapy; Side-effects.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest None declared.

References

    1. Winer E.P., Hudis C., Burstein H.J., Wolff A.C., Pritchard K.I., Ingle J.N., et al. American Society of Clinical Oncology technology assessment on the use of aromatase inhibitors as adjuvant therapy for postmenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer: status report 2004. J Clin Oncol. 2005;23(3):619–629. - PubMed
    1. Early Breast Cancer Trialists’ Collaborative Group (EBCTCG) Effects of chemotherapy and hormonal therapy for early breast cancer on recurrence and 15-year survival: an overview of the randomised trials. Lancet. 2005;365(9472):1687–1717. - PubMed
    1. Goel S., Sharma R., Hamilton A., Beith J. LHRH agonists for adjuvant therapy of early breast cancer in premenopausal women. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2009;2009(4) - PMC - PubMed
    1. Federatie medisch specialisten. Richtlijn borstkanker [Available from: https://richtlijnendatabase.nl/richtlijn/borstkanker/startpagina_-_borst....
    1. Lambert L.K., Balneaves L.G., Howard A.F., Gotay C.C. Patient-reported factors associated with adherence to adjuvant endocrine therapy after breast cancer: an integrative review. Breast Cancer Res Treat. 2018;167(3):615–633. - PubMed