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A single cheap hormone injection before breast surgery did not help every woman, but in those whose cancer had reached the lymph nodes it improved survival at five years, a finding still being tested.
976 women with operable breast cancer were randomised to a single preoperative injection of depot hydroxyprogesterone or no injection, with a median follow-up of 65 months. Disease-free survival and overall survival were not significantly improved overall, but in node-positive patients 5-year disease-free survival was 65.3% versus 54.7% (hazard ratio 0.72; 95% CI 0.54-0.97; P=0.02) and overall survival 75.7% versus 66.8% (hazard ratio 0.70; 95% CI 0.49-0.99; P=0.04). Badwe and colleagues concluded that a simple, inexpensive intervention deserved confirmation; the same group's later randomised trial of peritumoral lidocaine at surgery (1,583 women) did show a survival gain, keeping the perioperative window a live research theme in India.
Numbers are from the trial as recorded here; see the source links in the table below. This is orientation, not medical advice: ask your team how closely the trial population matches you.
Shares Tata Memorial Centre, No incentive to repurpose cheap drugs, Global access and affordability roadmap: essential medicines and generics → biosimilars and frugal trials → reliance, pooling and homegrown innovation, Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC).
Shares Subgroup analysis (forest plots), Pre-specified vs post-hoc analysis, Why trials fail: underpowered, wrong endpoint, control arm drift, subgroup fishing, crossover.
Shares Tata Memorial Centre, No incentive to repurpose cheap drugs, Global access and affordability roadmap: essential medicines and generics → biosimilars and frugal trials → reliance, pooling and homegrown innovation.
Shares Global access and affordability roadmap: essential medicines and generics → biosimilars and frugal trials → reliance, pooling and homegrown innovation, Surgery and radiotherapy cure most, get least, HR-positive / HER2-negative breast cancer.
Shares Subgroup analysis (forest plots), Pre-specified vs post-hoc analysis, Why trials fail: underpowered, wrong endpoint, control arm drift, subgroup fishing, crossover.
Shares Rajendra Badwe, Tata Memorial Centre, Global access and affordability roadmap: essential medicines and generics → biosimilars and frugal trials → reliance, pooling and homegrown innovation.
Shares Tata Memorial Centre, Global access and affordability roadmap: essential medicines and generics → biosimilars and frugal trials → reliance, pooling and homegrown innovation, Surgery and radiotherapy cure most, get least.
Shares Pre-specified vs post-hoc analysis, Why trials fail: underpowered, wrong endpoint, control arm drift, subgroup fishing, crossover.