Treatment of Early Breast Cancer by Early Breast Cancer Trialists' Collaborative Group

This book provides an overview of the evidence from nearly 100 clinical trials in early breast cancer and presents conclusions aimed at helping all clinicians who treat women with this disease to select the best available therapy. Early breast cancer is diagnosed in several hundreds of thousands of women each year. If some widely practicable treatment could produce even a moderate reduction in the risk of death from the disease, this might avoid 10,000 deaths in a year and the unique world-wide collaboration of the EBCTCG has shown that this can be achieved. The findings are presented in a readable manner and are relevant not only to clinical trialists, but also to anyone concerned with treating and advising women with breast cancer and to all those interested in medical research in general and clinical trials in particular. The trials reviewed in this first report involve about 40,000 women with an average follow-up of three years. The treatment of early breast cancer with tamoxifen, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and ovarian ablation will be investigated and the effect of these therapies on mortality and recurrence will be reported. A further self-contained volume reviewing 300 randomized trials with a follow-up of six years is to be published in 1991.