LAUSR

Background: Even though the efficaciousness of 5 years of adjuvant endocrine therapy (AET) and another 5 years of extended endocrine therapy (EET) has been verified, it is a common phenomenon that many patients discontinue the treatment earlier and do not adhere to treatment as prescribed. The aim of this study was to investigate the patients’ preference of EET and relevant factors in a population of Chinese women with hormone receptor (HR) positive breast cancer in order to look for modifiable factors to increase compliance. Methods: An investigational study about the patients’ preference of EET was conducted in breast cancer patients with good AET adherence between May 2017 and July 2017. Socio-demographic and clinicopathological data of the participants were collected. Logistic regression models were used to assess the association between these factors and EET preference. Results: Of 179 enrolled women, 98 (54.7%) were willing to extend endocrine therapy to 10 years, 65 (36.3%) were unwilling and the remaining 16 patients (8.9%) would like to follow the doctor’s advice. After adjustment for socio-demographic and clinicopathological characteristics, type of breast surgery was found to be the only variable independently associated with EET preference with mastectomy patients more willing to receive EET (P=0.001, OR=4.010). The proportion of EET preference did not significantly differ in patients with or without medicine change, irregular medication and side effect. Conclusions: An important goal in the endocrine therapy is to assure the treatment compliance. The extension of treatment should be based on good AET compliance. Here, we investigated for the first time the patients’ preference of EET in patients with relatively better adherence. Mastectomy patients were found to be more willing to EET. More studies are needed to increase our understanding of patients’ preference and interventions to improve EET preference are also needed, especially for breast conserving patients.