21st Department of General Surgery, Izmir Ataturk Training and Research Hospital, Izmir
3Department of General Surgery, Ali Osman Sonmez Oncology Hospital, Bursa
4Department of Medical Oncology, Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine, Ankara
5Department of General Surgery, Istanbul University, Istanbul Faculty of Medicine, Istanbul, all in Turkey OBJECTIVES
To identify adverse events profile of patients with breast cancer in Turkey during use of anastrozole.
METHODS
Between 2001-2006, 874 postmenopausal women with earlystage
breast-cancer treated with anastrozole (1 mg/day) were
included. We used electronic case report forms at 3rd, 6th,
12th, 18th and 24th months after the 1st visit.
RESULTS
Mean age of the patients was 60.2±9.6 years. Mean follow-up
period was 11.7±7.5 months. Anastrozole was discontinued in
17 (1.9%) patients due to cancer recurrence during observation
period. Thirty-five adverse events (16-mild, 3-moderate,
16-severe) were identified in 18 patients. In 4 patients
treatment was discontinued. Of the patients attending followup
visits %90 experienced no difficulties in taking treatment
as prescribed, and 82% and 88% took treatment exactly as
prescribed in 6th and 7th visits, respectively.
CONCLUSION
Compliance and drug tolerability assessments revealed that
Anastrozole was well tolerated in 83.2% of the patients, and
treatment compliance was high in 81.7% of the patients.