The effect of exemestane, anastrozole, and tamoxifen on lipid profiles in Japanese postmenopausal early breast cancer patients: final results of National Surgical Adjuvant Study BC 04, the TEAM Japan sub-study

Abstract

BackgroundIn this Tamoxifen Exemestane Adjuvant Multinational Japan sub-study, we evaluated the time course of changes in serum lipids in postmenopausal women with hormone-sensitive early breast cancer treated with exemestane, anastrozole, or tamoxifen for postoperative adjuvant therapy. Patients and methodsA total of 154 breast cancer patients were assigned to receive exemestane, anastrozole, or tamoxifen in this randomized open-label study. Serum lipid parameters including triglyceride (TG), total cholesterol (TC), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) were measured during 1 year of treatment. ResultsTC and LDL-C rapidly decreased in patients treated with tamoxifen at 3 months. Compared with anastrozole and exemestane patients, TC and LDL-C were significantly lower at all assessment time points in tamoxifen patients (P<0.05). TG increased in tamoxifen patients; it was significantly higher compared with exemestane patients at all assessment time points (P<0.05). HDL-C slightly decreased in exemestane patients; it was significantly lower compared with anastrozole patients at 3 months and 1 year (P=0.0179 and 0.0013, respectively). ConclusionChanges of lipid profiles in Japanese postmenopausal women treated with tamoxifen were relatively favorable, while exemestane and anastrozole had no clinically significant effect on the serum lipids.