Pharmacoprevention of breast cancer by tamoxifen: should we still be asking ourselves the question?

Pharmacoprevention of cancer is an attractive concept. For breast cancer, s everal trials were set up some years ago. The largest one was stopped befor e its planned date of closure and demonstrated an early appearing reduction in breast cancer occurrence; in contrast, the other two trials did not fin d such a protective effect. The decision is all the more difficult because of tamoxifen side effects, including carcinogenicity. Currently, no definit e conclusion can be drawn.