The latest findings from the ATAC trial strengthen the argument for a larger role for aromatase inhibitors.
The ATAC trial was a multicenter, double-blind, clinical trial in which 9366 postmenopausal women who had completed primary therapy for localized breast cancer were randomized to receive tamoxifen, the aromatase inhibitor anastrozole, or both. Initial analyses at 33 and 47 months demonstrated that, compared with tamoxifen, anastrozole prolonged disease-free survival and time to recurrence and reduced the incidence of contralateral cancer (Journal Watch Women's Health Sep 24 2002 and Cancer 2003; 98:1802). The combination-treatment arm, which showed efficacy similar to that of the tamoxifen arm, was stopped after these analyses. Now, researchers present outcomes for anastrozole and tamoxifen through a median 68 months of follow-up.
Both overa…