Key clinical point: In postmenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive (HR+) early-stage breast cancer (BC), extending anastrozole treatment for an additional 5 years after initial 5-year treatment with anastrozole-containing hormone therapy improved disease-free survival (DFS) without any major adverse event occurrence.
Major finding: Continuation of anastrozole treatment for an additional 5 years significantly improved 5-year DFS (hazard ratio [HR] 0.62; P = .0010). The incidence of grade ≥3 adverse events was <1% in both groups, with no significant difference observed between both the groups.
Study details: Findings are from the phase 3, AERAS trial including 1593 postmenopausal women with HR+ early-stage invasive BC who were disease-free at 5 years after postoperative endocrine therapy and were randomly assigned to stop or continue receiving anastrozole for an additional 5 years.
Disclosures: This study was supported by Public Health Research Foundation, Japan. Several authors declared receiving honoraria or research funding or serving on speaker’s bureaus, in consulting roles, or in advisory roles for various sources.
Source: Iwase T et al. Postoperative adjuvant anastrozole for 10 or 5 Years in patients with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer: AERAS, a randomized multicenter open-label phase III trial. J Clin Oncol. 2023 (Apr 20). Doi: 10.1200/JCO.22.00577