Conditions: Ductal Breast Carcinoma in Situ Estrogen Receptor-positive Breast Cancer
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: PARALLEL
Enrollment: 27
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
This randomized phase II trial is studying 4-hydroxytamoxifen to see how well it works compared with tamoxifen citrate in treating women with newly diagnosed ductal breast carcinoma in situ. Estrogen can cause the growth of breast cancer cells. Hormone therapy using tamoxifen may fight breast cancer by blocking the use of estrogen by the tumor cells. It is not yet known whether topical tamoxifen causes less damage to normal tissue than systemic tamoxifen in treating patients with ductal carcinoma in situ.

Detailed description:
This is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled presurgical trial of 0.228% 4-hydroxy-tamoxifen (4-OHT) gel vs. oral tamoxifen (TAM) 20 mg daily. The study population will consist of 112 pre- and postmenopausal women with any grade DCIS, ER positive, non-palpable DCIS with no evidence of invasion found on diagnostic core needle biopsy (DCNB). In order to accrue a total of 112 participants with DCIS over a period of 22 months, 20 eligible participants total will be screened at the three participating institutions per month with a planned average monthly recruitment of 5 participants total per month. We assume that 22 women (20% of the recruited population, 11 women per arm) will be inevaluable because of the presence of unanticipated invasive disease in the therapeutic surgical excisional (TSE) specimen, or the absence of residual DCIS in the TSE, so that a total of 90 women (45 per arm) will be evaluable for the study endpoints. These estimates are based on numbers from the Lynn Sage Database of NU: over the six-year period 2000-2005, the fraction of women diagnosed with DCIS on core needle biopsy who were found to have no residual DCIS in the TSE was 2.5% and that of women with invasive disease (T1a or greater) in the TSE when the DCNB showed pure DCIS was 13.3%, very similar to the data reported by Bonnett et. al. \[56\] who found that 13% of pure DCIS lesions seen on DCNB (29/122) were in fact invasive in the TSE. With regard to racial/ethnic groups, 25.6% of the DCIS population at NU were of non-European ancestry (18% African, 4% Hispanic, 3.5% other). WU has higher fractions of African American women with DCIS (24% and 21% respectively).

The participants will be consented following diagnostic core needle biopsy at the time of initial surgical consultation. Baseline assessments include medical history, nipple aspirate fluid (NAF) collection, explanation of gel application, BESS questionnaire (symptom assessment) and blood draw for clinical and research labs including plasma estradiol, progesterone and FSH (rushed), CBC, chemistry profile, liver and renal function tests, Factor VIII, von Willebrand Factor, Factor IX, and total protein S, plasma for insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1) and sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG), and DNA extraction for assessment of polymorphisms in tamoxifen metabolism genes. At Northwestern plasma and RNA from blood will be collected pre- and post-treatment and will be stored for future proteomic and gene expression fingerprinting

No run-in period is planned. The intervention phase will begin within 5 days following randomization and end on the day prior to surgical resection. The 4-OHT group will apply active gel 2 mg daily to each breast for 4-10 weeks and take oral placebo. The TAM group will take 20 mg TAM orally daily and apply gel placebo. The last dose of study medication will be used on the morning of the day prior to surgery.

Participants will be shipped two 100 ml canisters of 4-OHT or placebo gel plus 130 capsules of tamoxifen or oral placebo at the time of randomization. Participants will take study agents for 4-10 week (minimum). However, if surgery needs to be delayed beyond the 8 week study period for clinical reasons (eg scheduling with plastic surgery) the participant will be sent additional medication by mail to allow continuation of therapy until the day before surgery up to a maximum duration of 10 weeks.

On the day prior to surgery, baseline assessments will be repeated (with the exception of menopausal determination and tamoxifen metabolism gene polymorphisms, but with the addition of blood draw for tamoxifen metabolites and E and Z 4-OHT isomer determination). Under unavoidable circumstances, the end of intervention visit will be allowed on the day of surgery prior to TSE. During the TSE breast adipose tissue from the surgical sample will be snap frozen and stored at -800C for measurement of TAM metabolites. The paraffin block of the DCNB and TSE samples will be acquired by the recruiting institution and 10 sections from each specimen submitted to the NU Pathology Core Facility (NU PCF). The sections will be cut in batches (with pre- and post-samples in the same batch), shipped cold, and processed for immunohistochemistry within a week of sectioning.

Compliance assessment will occur through patient diaries, pill counts and the weighing of returned drug (gel) canisters.

Patients will be assessed for adverse events at the post-surgical visit (approximately 7-14 days after surgery) and by phone at 30 days following the last dose of study agent.

Arms:
arm 1: 4-hydroxytamoxifen gel 2mg/breast applied daily. Oral placebo taken daily. arm 2: Placebo gel applied to the breasts daily. 20mg oral tamoxifen taken daily (taken as two (2) 10mg capsules).

Interventions: intervention 1: oral placebo intervention 2: afimoxifene intervention 3: tamoxifen citrate intervention 4: placebo gel
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: Oral placebo taken daily for 4-10 weeks. intervention 2: 2mg/breast applied daily in the form of a gel for 4-10 weeks. intervention 3: 20mg oral tamoxifen taken daily (taken as two (2) 10mg capsules) for 4-10 weeks. intervention 4: Placebo gel applied to breasts daily for 4-10 weeks.

Protocol document: