Endometrial cancers in postmenopausal breast cancer patients with tamoxifen treatment

To evaluate possible predicting factors for endometrial cancer in postmenop ausal breast cancer patients with tamoxifen treatment, we compared various clinical features between 12 postmenopausal breast cancer tamoxifen-treated patients with endometrial cancer and a control group of 261 otherwise simi lar patients without this endometrial pathology. These comparisons were bas ed on a long-term prospective follow-up. Several clinical factors such as l onger duration of breast disease, older patient age, lower frequency of che motherapy administration, and higher frequency of postmenopausal bleeding w ere found among the tamoxifen-treated patients with endometrial cancers, an d were significantly different when compared to the control group. Only eig ht (66.7%) had postmenopausal bleeding, and a preoperative diagnosis of end ometrial cancer was made in only six (50.0%). When considering postmenopaus al bleeding as a marker for endometrial cancer in the study patients, sensi tivity was 67% and specificity was 98%.