Tailoring endocrine therapy in early breast cancer: prolonged duration and potential drawbacks

This dissertation focuses on the hormonal treatment of postmenopausal women with early-stage breast cancer, with the focus on the question what the optimal duration of this treatment is and what the potential side effects are. We have concluded that prolonging adjuvant hormonal therapy with an aromatase inhibitor from 3 to 6 years, after 2-3 years of tamoxifen treatment, should only be considered if there is a high risk of disease recurrence, for example in the presence of regional lymph node metastases. The second part of this thesis focuses on the treatment of a specific subgroup of women with breast cancer who have become postmenopausal as a result of chemotherapy. The third part focuses on the development of bone density during hormonal therapy.