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Breast cancer

Safety of interrupting adjuvant endocrine therapy to conceive: early data are POSITIVE

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Planning for a pregnancy in patients receiving adjuvant endocrine therapy following a diagnosis of hormone receptor (HR)-positive early stage breast cancer is challenging. Recent data from the POSITIVE trial provide reassuring prospective evidence that a temporary interruption of endocrine therapy for women with HR-positive breast cancer who are trying to conceive can be considered safe in the short term for selected patients.

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Fig. 1: Proposed decision-making algorithm for temporary interruption of adjuvant endocrine therapy in women with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer who wish to become pregnant.

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Acknowledgements

M.L. acknowledges the Italian Association for Cancer Research (‘Associazione Italiana per la Ricerca sul Cancro’, AIRC; MFAG 2020 ID 24698) for supporting his research in the field of breast cancer in young women and oncofertility.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Internal Medicine and Medical Specialties (DiMI), School of Medicine, University of Genova, Genoa, Italy

    Luca Arecco & Matteo Lambertini

  2. Department of Medical Oncology, U.O.C. Clinica di Oncologia Medica, IRCCS Ospedale Policlinico San Martino, Genoa, Italy

    Luca Arecco & Matteo Lambertini

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  1. Luca Arecco
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  2. Matteo Lambertini
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Correspondence to Matteo Lambertini.

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Competing interests

M.L. has acted as an advisor of Astrazeneca, Exact Sciences, Gilead, Lilly, MSD, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche and Seagen, has received honoraria as a speaker from Daiichi Sankyo, Libbs, Lilly, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, Sandoz and Takeda, has received travel grants and institutional research funding from Gilead. L.A. declares no competing interests.

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Arecco, L., Lambertini, M. Safety of interrupting adjuvant endocrine therapy to conceive: early data are POSITIVE. Nat Rev Clin Oncol 20, 662–663 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41571-023-00797-4

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