Adjuvant Surgical Oophorectomy Plus Tamoxifen in Premenopausal Women With Operable Hormone Receptor-Positive Breast Cancer: AÂ Global Treatment Option

One third of annual new cases of breast cancer globally are now hormone receptor-positive tumors in premenopausal women from low- and middle-income countries. For this subgroup of women with breast cancer, high-income country guidelines suggest impractical and unaffordable adjuvant treatments. The balance of clinical trial evidence now suggests that surgical oophorectomy plus tamoxifen is a safe and practical treatment for these women in low- and middle-income countries. Additionally, new randomized trial data suggest that women in the second half of an anovulatory cycle benefit minimally from surgical oophorectomy done at this time, which implies that regularly cycling women will benefit more than has been shown from this procedure. Allred scoring of levels of hormone receptors is a practical and inexpensive approach to the assessment of magnitudes of response to oophorectomy plus tamoxifen. These circumstances suggest that more detailed consideration of this option should characterize clinical practice guidelines in high-income countries because of their global impact.