Incidence of reversible amenorrhea in women with breast cancer undergoing adjuvant anthracycline and taxen-based chemotherapy.

Abstract

e11025 Background: To determine the incidence of reversible amenorrhea in women with breast cancer undergoing adjuvant anthracycline and taxane-based chemotherapy. Methods: We studied the incidence and duration of amenorrhea induced by adjuvant chemotherapy(regimens: 6EC(Epirubicin and cyclophosphamide) or 4EC follow by 4Taxen) in 68 premenopausal patients with different age group. Reversible amenorrhea was defined as recovery of regular menses or premenopausal hormone values (luteinizing hormone (LH), follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and estradiol) in the year following the end of chemotherapy. Results: The incidence of chemotherapy-induced amenorrhea(CIA) at the end of chemotherapy was similar in the two groups: 81.3% in the 6EC arm and 86.3% in the 4EC/4T arm. The incidence of CIA was not significance higher in the middle age arm(older than 40 years old) than in the younger arm(40 or younger than 40 years old): 97.4% versus 86.7% (P=0.114). However, more reversible amenorrhea was observed in younger arm than in middle age arm (76.7% vs. 34.2%, P=0.001). The median duration of regular menses recovering was 9 months in the younger arm and 11 months in the median age arm. More persistent amenorrhea had been detected in the middle age arm than in younger arm: 63.2% vs.10%, P<0.001). Multivariate analysis showed that age (>40years) was independently associated with the incidences of CIA (P=0.048). Conclusions: Age was the strongest predictor of the incidence of amenorrhea during adjuvant chemotherapy. Our study suggests that most of CIA in younger patients induced by adjuvant chemotherapy were reversible amenorrhea. Therefore adjuvant aromatase inhibitors for early breast cancer patients with CIA should be cautiously administered.