Interrupting endocrine therapy to pursue pregnancy doesn't lead to worse short-term breast cancer recurrence rates

Medical Xpress / Am. Assoc. for Cancer Research / San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium ^ | Dec. 9, 2022 | Ann Partridge, MD, MPH

[ConservativeMind]

Breast cancer patients who paused their endocrine therapy to try to get pregnant experienced short-term rates of breast cancer recurrence similar to women who did not pause therapy for pregnancy, and many went on to conceive and deliver healthy babies, according to results from the POSITIVE clinical trial.

While some retrospective studies have shown that pregnancy after cancer is feasible and safe, many women are concerned that breast cancer treatment will make it difficult to conceive or that pregnancy might exacerbate a woman's cancer.

Young women with early-stage hormone receptor (HR)-positive breast cancer are often treated with endocrine therapy, such as ovarian function suppression, aromatase inhibitors, or selective estrogen receptor modulators.

From December 2014 through December 2019, 518 women aged 42 or younger who desired to become pregnant enrolled in the study, opting to pause endocrine therapy for approximately two years to try to get pregnant. Before pausing their treatment, women had completed between 18 and 30 months of adjuvant endocrine therapy.

At a median follow-up of 41 months, 44 participants had experienced a recurrence of breast cancer. The three-year rate of recurrence was 8.9 percent, similar to the 9.2 percent rate in an external control cohort from the SOFT/TEXT trials, which examined adjuvant endocrine therapy in premenopausal women.

Of 497 women followed for pregnancy status, 368 (74 percent) had at least one pregnancy, and 317 (63.8 percent) had at least one live birth, with a total of 365 babies born. These rates of conception and childbirth were on par with or higher than rates in the general public, Pagani said.

Trial participants were strongly recommended to resume endocrine therapy after a pregnancy attempt or success. To date, 76.3 percent have resumed their therapy, the authors said.

[ConservativeMind]

It is okay to do what you need to have a child.

[ConservativeMind]

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