Genetic polymorphisms of CYP2D6*10 and CYP2C19*2, *3 are not associated with prognosis, endometrial thickness, or bone mineral density in Japanese breast cancer patients treated with adjuvant tamoxifen.

摘要

We are grateful to Dr. Gaetz et al for their queries, which we consider both important and useful for a better understanding of our study. Our responses to these questions are set out below.Unfortunately, the exact percentage of patients who refused to give their consent for the blood collection during the study period is unknown; however, the estimated refusal rate was very low (a few percentage points). Blood collection was performed before surgery from all patients who had provided consent. Patients who had estrogen receptor (ER)-positive and/or progesterone receptor (PR)-positive breast cancers received adjuvant tamoxifen, so that all ER-negative tumors were PR-positive tumors. We included patients who had received adjuvant tamoxifen and chemotherapy and/or lutenizing hormone-releasing hormone agonist, because it has been proven that tamoxifen significantly improves recurrence-free survival rates even in conjunction with these concomitant treatments. Postoperative surveillance consisted of a physical examination every 3 to 6 months for 2 years, every 6 months for 2 to 5 years, and once a year thereafter and was combined with a; blood test and chest x-ray (mam-mography every year). Nine patients were lost to follow-up, 20 patients developed recurrences, and none of the patients without recurrence died.