Adjuvant endocrine therapy in pre- and perimenopausal women with breast cancer: practice guidelines

17 92 Introduction Breast cancer is a common disease. In 2012 (latest available fi gures), 10,531 female breast cancer cases were diagnosed in Belgium. Among these, 2,079 were diagnosed before the age of 50 and 1,243 additional cases were diagnosed between the ages of 50 and 54. The exact number of premenopausal patients with oestrogen receptor positive early invasive breast cancer is unfortunately not known, but given these fi gures, we estimate that in Belgium, every year, between 2,000 and 3,000 women are diagnosed in this setting.