The combination of tamoxifen and Zoladex appears to be "significantly more effective" than chemotherapy as a followup treatment for premenopausal women following surgery for stage I or II hormone-responsive breast cancer, according to Austrian researchers.

The researchers, reporting in the Journal of Clinical Oncology on results from the Austrian Breast and Colorectal Cancer Study Group Trial 5, said the tamoxifen-Zoladex combination produced longer relapse-free survival than standard chemotherapy with cyclophosphamide, methotrexate and fluorouracil, with fewer side effects.

Zoladex (goserelin) is a hormone similar to the one normally released from the hypothalamus gland in the brain, and works to decrease the amount of estrogen and testosterone in the blood.

While hot flashes and depression were more common in the group taking tamoxifen and Zoladex, nausea was much more common in the chemotherapy group.

"Overall, our data suggest that the goserelin-tamoxifen combination is significantly more effective than [chemotherapy] in the adjuvant treatment of premenopausal patients with stage I and II breast cancer," the researchers concluded.

Other sources: Journal of Clinical Oncology