Abstract
The value of adjuvant chemotherapy and endocrine therapy in the treatment of women with operable breast cancer has been a topic of controversy since the early trials of adjuvant perioperative chemotherapy of the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast Project (NSABP) and the Scandiavian Adjuvant Chemotherapy Study Group [1,2]. Over this period clinical trial methodology has evolved, providing a better understanding of how to conduct studies to more confidently and precisely answer questions of clinical importance. Randomized trials are not necessary to test the efficacy of a treatment that is uniformly curative. The recognition that small differences in treatment effect can be important necessitates comparative studies. That such studies require attention to methodologic issues with sample sizes sufficiently large to detect modest differences between two or more treatments has been generally accepted and put into practice in recent years.
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Dorr, F.A., Friedman, M.A. (1992). Unanswered questions in the adjuvant therapy of breast cancer. In: Henderson, I.C. (eds) Adjuvant Therapy of Breast Cancer. Cancer Treatment and Research, vol 60. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-3496-9_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-3496-9_12
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