Around 5,500 pre-menopausal breast cancer patients could be offered a hormone drug that is shown to be as effective as traditional chemotherapy - and so avoid potential infertility and long-term menopausal side effects - according to a Cancer Research UK report published in The Lancet.
Hormone therapy drugs which stop the ovaries from producing oestrogen is as effective as conventional chemotherapy for many pre-menopausal breast cancer patients with the added benefit of them being better tolerated by patients.
This means women, whose breast cancer is hormone sensitive, may not need risk becoming permanently infertile or suffering the unpleasant side effects caused by chemotherapy.
The report showed that when pre-menopausal women were treated with a particular hormone therapy drug their chance of the disease recurring was no higher than having chemotherapy alone.
The drugs, called LHRH agonists, stop the pituitary gland producing luteinising hormone, and so remove the stimulus for the ovaries to make oestrogen. But once the treatment stops the ovarian function usually returns to normal.
When younger breast cancer patients have chemotherapy the treatment accelerates the menopause and can deny women the chance to have children. In addition, many women suffer from long-term unpleasant post-menopausal side effects.
Professor Jack Cuzick, Cancer Research UK scientist and lead author of the study, said: "We analysed 16 trials involving LHRH agonists and these results point to an important additional approach to treating breast cancer.