Chemotherapy: Open Access
Open Access

Abstract

Preferences for Endocrine Therapy Among Breast Cancer Patients

Weiwei Tang, Kai Fu, Dawei Rong, Hongyong Cao, Hanjin Wang and Hao Tong

Background: Poor adherence is a common problem in the endocrine treatment of breast cancer, which requires patients to take medication at least 5 years duration. So far, very little was reported in the literature on the research of the compliance of endocrine therapy for breast cancer in China and there have not been any reports on the follow-up of breast cancer patients for 5 years. This study was aimed to understand the compliance of endocrine therapy and analyze impact factors, so as to put forward intervention measures to improve compliance of endocrine therapy in breast cancer patients.
Methods: 279 patients who received modified radical mastectomy or breast conserving surgery in Nanjing first hospital from January 2010 to December 2011 were enrolled in this survey. All patients were investigated by telephone follow-up from Monday to Friday. In this study, the count data was described by frequency and constituent ratio. Correlation analysis was performed by using SPSS for Windows v.19.0 (SPSS, Chicago, IL).
Results: The results of oral compliance with endocrine drugs in 279 cases with breast cancer revealed that the number of patients who withdraw drugs in 4th year accounted for the largest one. Moreover, endocrine therapy of breast cancer compliance was getting worse with the extension of time. There was a statistically significant difference in compliance between the three groups, suggesting that the compliance of the tamoxifen group was the worst and anastrozole group was the best. Univariate analysis and logistic regression model both reflected that drug type was the factor influencing the compliance of endocrine therapy in patients with breast cancer.
Conclusion: The adherence of endocrine therapy to breast cancer is getting lower and lower with extension of time. Different endocrine drugs showed different compliance, in which tamoxifen poorer compliance has compared with the AI class of drugs. Combined with other diseases and drug classification were the main factors influencing compliance of oral endocrine drugs in patients with breast cancer.