Late follow-up of a randomised trial of surgery plus tamoxifen versus tamoxifen alone in women over 70 with operable breast cancer

Three hundred and eighty-one women with operable breast cancer aged

over 70 years were randomly allocated to 40 mg tamoxifen daily and

optimal surgery or to tamoxifen alone. At a median follow-up of 34

months there was no demonstrable difference in survival rate or in

quality of life between the two treatment groups. More patients treated

with tamoxifen alone had a subsequent change of management and this

was usually an operation for local treatment failure. This progression

to surgery has not been shown to be disadvantageous and the study will

continue. Informed consent for randomization was difficult to obtain,

leading to the exclusion of eligible patients, and it is therefore proposed to include non-randomised patients in a total cohort study.