Format for Printing A panel of national and international experts said that in addition to surgery, most breast cancer patients should receive chemotherapy , hormonal therapy, or radiation therapy to improve their chances of surviving breast cancer.
Adjuvant therapy is treatment that is given in addition to surgery.
Panel chair Patricia Eifel, MD, Professor of Radiation Oncology at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, and her colleagues said that a variety of factors should be considered when determining whether adjuvant therapy should be offered to breast cancer patients. According to the NIH panel, treatment with chemotherapy drugs improves a woman s chances of surviving breast cancer. The experts said that research has shown that taking tamoxifen for five years is more beneficial to women than only taking tamoxifen for one or two years. Currently, there is no evidence that tamoxifen should be used for more than five years outside of a clinical trial setting. However, the panel said that this would be an important area for investigation.