Tolerability of hormone therapies for breast cancer: How informative are documented symptom profiles in medical notes for 'well-tolerated' treatments?

Hormonal therapies for cancer are often viewed as a gentler option than man y other cancer treatments, but is low toxicity an accurate perception of pa tients' experiences? Side effects tend to be described as minimal or well t olerated, yet published symptoms from hormonal therapy vary considerably in their descriptions and frequencies. Previous research has highlighted unde r-reporting of side effects by clinical staff so as part of a wider study e xamining tamoxifen and goserelin treatment as adjuvant therapy for breast c ancer, treatment- related symptoms documented in medical notes were compare d with those that patients reported during a research interview. There was a significant difference in the frequency of many side effects reported by the two methods in this study. Sixty four out of 72 (89%) women who had rec eived adjuvant tamoxifen or goserelin had side effects recorded in their me dical notes, compared with 74/75 (99%) reporting side effects at interview. We compared the published frequencies of commonly reported symptoms with t hose found ourselves. The discrepancies between patient-reported and clinic ian-recorded (usually from clinical trial data) symptom profiles were simil ar to those found in our study. Without accurate comprehensive side effect profiles for hormone therapies, prospective patients cannot make informed j udgements on proposed treatments.