Preserving Ovarian Function in Young Women with Breast Cancer

Balancing strategies to reduce the risk for disease recurrence while optimizing fertility preservation is a critical tension when caring for young women with early-stage breast cancer. To determine whether the use of the gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist goserelin reduces the risk for chemotherapy-induced premature ovarian insufficiency (POI) in women with early breast cancer, investigators conducted a prospective, randomized study (OPTION) of 202 premenopausal patients (median age, 38 years) with stage I–III disease (about 44% estrogen receptor positive) receiving neoadjuvant or adjuvant chemotherapy.

Patients received six to eight cycles of cyclophosphamide, an anthracycline, or both, with or without a taxane. In addition, they were r…