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Previous Volume 349:1857-1859 November 6, 2003 Number 19 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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Five years of tamoxifen therapy is the standard adjuvant endocrine therapy for early-stage, hormone-receptor–positive breast cancer.^1,2,3 Randomized trials have demonstrated the superiority of five years of treatment over shorter durations for the prevention of a recurrence,^4,5 as well as a carryover effect that lowers the risk of recurrence for a decade after the completion of five years of tamoxifen therapy and reduces the incidence of contralateral breast cancer. By contrast, several randomized trials have shown that continuing tamoxifen therapy for longer than five years does not improve recurrence-free or overall survival^6,7,8,9 and have raised the disturbing possibility that such a . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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From the Division of Medical Oncology, Dana–Farber Cancer Institute, and the Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston.

This editorial was published at www.nejm.org on October 9, 2003.

Related Letters:

Letrozole in Breast Cancer
Buzdar A. U., Hietanen P., Mäkelä M., Shahab N., Harris S. R., Hellman S., Hellman D., Goss P. E., Ingle J. N., Pater J. L., Bryant J., Wolmark N., Burstein H. J.
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N Engl J Med 2004; 350:727-730, Feb 12, 2004. Correspondence

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