Opinions

Oestrogene receptor expression level may affect mammographic density changes following discontinuation of tamoxifen in premenopausal women with oestrogen receptor-positive breast cancer

by Kadri Altundag (altundag66@yahoo.com)

Kim, W.H., Cho, N., Kim, YS. et al. Eur Radiol (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00330-017-5293-y

Letter to the Editor:

Oestrogene receptor expression level may affect mammographic density changes following discontinuation of tamoxifen in premenopausal women with oestrogen receptor-positive breast cancer

Dear Editor,

I want to congratulate Kim and colleagues for their article [1] in which they evaluated changes in mammographic density after tamoxifen discontinuation in premenopausal women with oestrogen receptor-positive breast cancers. They found that density increase is associated with age and density decrease after tamoxifen. However, authors did not take oestrogen receptor expression level into consideration as a variable that may affect mammographic density changes following discontinuation of tamoxifen in premenopausal women with oestrogen receptor-positive breast cancer. Breast cancer patients having low oestrogen expression levels are not sensitive to tamoxifen [2]. Therefore, breast density changes after tamoxifen are expected to be lower in these patients which in turn affect mammographic density after tamoxifen discontinuation.

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