Hormonal therapy

When breast cancer is diagnosed at the early stages, you will usually have the cancerous lump removed by surgery. The surgery is often accompanied by radiotherapy of the area around the cancer to remove any remaining cancer cells. However, because there is still the risk that some very small (micrometastatic), undetectable cancer cells may remain in the breast or in other areas of the body, you may be given an additional drug treatment e.g. hormonal treatment, to prevent the disease returning.


Hormonal treatment is primarily a way of fighting the recurrence of breast cancer (stopping it from coming back). The highest risk for recurrence is within the first five years of diagnosis, and peaks at around 2 years.

Your doctor will take a sample from your breast lump and he or she will test the sample to find whether or not your tumour is being encouraged to grow by your own natural oestrogen.

If this is the case, your doctor will almost certainly recommend treatment after surgery in the form of hormonal therapy. Such treatment, known as ‘adjuvant’ treatment', will generally be given for a period of 5 years.

If your cancer is at a more advanced stage, then surgery may not be appropriate and your doctor may then recommend chemotherapy and/or hormonal therapy as the main form of treatment given.

Hormones in breast cancer
Hormones are produced by organs or cells in your body and affect bodily processes. Oestrogen is one of a group of steroidal hormones that control female sexual development, promoting the growth and function of the female reproductive organs and female secondary sexual characteristics such as breast development.

Many breast cancer tumours, particularly those in women who have gone through the menopause (‘change of life’) are stimulated to grow when oestrogen is present.

Receptors are very small parts on the surface of a cell. If oestrogen is present, it will attach to oestrogen receptors on breast cancer cells and can cause the tumour grow larger.

Breast cancers that are stimulated by oestrogen are known as oestrogen receptor-positive (ER+ve), hormone receptor-positive or hormone sensitive. This means the breast cancer cells may continue to grow when oestrogen is present. Women who have this type of breast cancer are likely to respond well to hormonal treatment. Hormonal treatment works by removing or blocking the source of oestrogen and so depriving the tumour of its stimulus to grow.

Hormonal therapy can be used as a form of 'Adjuvant therapy'

Adjuvant means “in addition to”.

In breast cancer, this refers to additional treatment given following surgery to remove the tumour.
After surgery, tiny, undetectable remnants of the disease, may be left behind. These remnants may, after several years or even decades, develop into a tumour.

Adjuvant therapy helps to prevent or delay these cells from multiplying, and it may decrease the chance that your breast cancer will come back (recur).

The three most common forms of adjuvant treatment are radiation (radiotherapy), chemotherapy and hormonal therapy. Most women with breast cancer will receive a course of radiotherapy immediately following surgery and then go on to receive additional drug treatment in the form of chemotherapy or hormonal therapy – or sometimes both. Hormonal therapy is the most well tolerated of these.

“Endocrine” therapy

You may sometimes hear hormonal therapy referred to as “endocrine therapy”.

“Endocrine” is a word used to describe the natural hormones (such as oestrogen) that are secreted from glands in the body and affect the structure or function of other cells in the body.