Purpose: Bone metastases in breast cancer are quite common, and some patients may have no other site of metastasis. An effective treatment is often endocrine agents administration (tamoxifen or antiaromatases), given mainly to postmenopausal women. Radiation treatment is also effective, although difficult to perform in cases of extensive skeletal disease. Chemotherapy does not help. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of high-dose tamoxifen in female patients with breast cancer and bone metastasis.
Methods: 28 patients with breast cancer were treated with high-dose tamoxifen. All of them had been pretreated with hormonal therapy including low-dose tamoxifen.
Results: The results were extremely positive with clinical amelioration and also disappearance of osteolysis in some patients. Twenty six out of 28 patients responded to the treatment, the criteria being mainly pain reduction and body mobilization (an amelioration which lasted 8 months-4 years).
Conclusion: Tamoxifen is efficient when readministered at high dose to breast cancer patient with bone metastasis.