Chemotherapy-Induced Amenorrhea Prognostic Impact in Premenopausal Breast Cancer

According to a recent report in Frontiers in Oncology, chemotherapy-induced amenorrhea (CIA) is one of the most common side effects in premenopausal patients with breast cancer. As such, Yifei Wang and colleagues performed a meta-analysis to describe the clinical risk factors of CIA, as well as its prognostic implications in patient with breast cancer. They reported that age, hormone receptor (HR) status, estrogen receptor (ER) status, progesterone receptor (PR) status, tamoxifen administration, and chemotherapy regimen were shown to be independent predictive factors for occurrence of CIA. Notably, they also found that “CIA is a favorable prognostic factor in premenopausal patients with breast cancer. ”

Chemotherapy-Induced Amenorrhea Study Design

The meta-analysis included 68 studies from the Cochrane, EMBASE, and MEDLINE databases, covering a total of 26,585 patients with breast cancer, of which 16,927 developed CIA. The investigators an inverse variance-weighted approach to calculate pooled odds ratio estimates (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Publication bias and chi-square tests were also conducted on the included studies.

Related: Researchers Compare Pathological and Survival Variables in Breast Cancer

Trial Findings

According to the authors, seven risk factors were identified between the 68 studies, as noted above. Furthermore, they noted that patients aged ≤40, HR-, ER, and PR-negative status, no use of tamoxifen, and use of anthracycline-based regimen (A) versus anthracycline-taxane-based regimen (A+T) were associated with a lower incidence of CIA in patients with breast cancer. Notably, the investigators observed that CIA was associated with favorable disease-free survival (OR = 0.595; 95% CI, 0.537–0.658; p <0.001) and overall survival (OR = 0.547; 95% CI, 0.454–0.660; p <0.001) for this patient population.

In their summary, the study’s authors reiterated the predictive factors of CIA, and proposed that “CIA should be a trade-off in the clinical management of premenopausal patients with breast cancer;” although they acknowledged that further studies are needed to confirm the findings of their meta-analysis.

Read More Recent Studies at the DocWire News Breast Cancer Resource Center