Risk factors for the development of endometrial lesions in breast cancer patients using tamoxyphen: a retrospective cohort study.

INTRODUCTION

breast cancer is the cancer with the highest incidence in women in Brazil, representing 29.7% of all cancers. More than two thirds of women with breast cancer show expression for hormone receptors, and in these cases, hormone therapy with tamoxifen is indicated, which may represent a risk factor for the development of endometrial cancer (four-fold greater relative risk).

OBJECTIVE

this study aimed to evaluate the association of tamoxifen and the development of endometrial disturbances and to assess possible other associated risk factors.

PATIENTS AND METHOD

a total of 364 breast cancer patients were evaluated, 286 who used tamoxifen and 78 who did not use this hormone therapy. Results: patients who used tamoxifen had a mean follow-up time of 51.42 months similar to those without hormone therapy (p=0.081). A total of 21 (7.3%) women who used tamofixen and no cases among women without hormone therapy presented endometrial changes during follow-up (p=0.01). Despite information regarding obesity was available for only 270 women, obesity was also significantly associated with the development of endometrial changes (p=0.008).

CONCLUSION

furthermore, the association between tamofixen and endometrial changes remained significant (p=0.039) after adjusting for obesity.