Endocrine Treatment-Related Symptoms and Patient Outcomes in Breast Cancer: A Meta-Analysis.
- Author:
Tae Kyung YOO
1
;
Myoung Jin JANG
;
Eunshin LEE
;
Hyeong Gon MOON
;
Dong Young NOH
;
Wonshik HAN
Author Information
- Publication Type:Meta-Analysis ; Original Article
- Keywords: Breast neoplasms; Disease-free survival; Drug-related side effects and adverse reactions; Hormonal antineoplastic agent; Meta-analysis
- MeSH: Biomarkers; Breast Neoplasms*; Breast*; Disease-Free Survival; Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reactions; Humans; Recurrence; Symptom Assessment
- From:Journal of Breast Cancer 2018;21(1):37-44
- CountryRepublic of Korea
- Language:English
- Abstract: PURPOSE: An association between endocrine treatment-related symptoms and breast cancer recurrence has been suggested previously; however, conflicting results have been reported. We performed a meta-analysis of published studies to clarify this relationship. METHODS: We systematically searched PubMed, Embase, Scopus, and the Cochrane database for studies investigating the association between endocrine treatment-related symptoms and patient survival. Random-effects meta-analysis was conducted with recurrence rate as the primary outcome. RESULTS: Out of 7,713 retrieved articles, six studies were included. In patients who received endocrine treatment, the presence of any endocrine treatment-related symptom was found to be associated with a lower recurrence rate in comparison to an absence of any symptoms (hazard ratio [HR], 0.76; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.66–0.87). This relationship persisted in patients presenting with only vasomotor or only musculoskeletal symptoms (HR, 0.74, 95% CI, 0.63–0.87; HR, 0.69, 95% CI, 0.55–0.86, respectively). At both time-points of symptom evaluation (3 months and 12 months), patients with endocrine treatment-related symptoms had a lower recurrence rate (HR, 0.74, 95% CI, 0.66–0.84; HR, 0.79, 95% CI, 0.69–0.90, respectively). This association was also significant in pooled studies including patients with and without baseline symptoms (HR, 0.73, 95% CI, 0.54–0.99; HR, 0.76, 95% CI, 0.69–0.85, respectively). CONCLUSION: Endocrine treatment-related symptoms are significantly predictive of lower recurrence rate in breast cancer patients, regardless of the type of symptoms, time-point of evaluation, or inclusion of baseline symptoms. These symptoms could be biomarkers for the prediction of long-term responses to endocrine treatment in patients with breast cancer.
