Pilot for The Breast Cancer Endocrine Therapy Adherence (BETA) Trial

Approximately 75% of breast cancers express the estrogen and/or progesterone receptor (hormone receptors). The standard of care for women with hormone receptor positive breast cancer is five to ten years of adjuvant endocrine therapy with drugs such as tamoxifen or aromatase inhibitors (AIs). In women with stage I-III breast cancer, treatment with adjuvant endocrine therapy has been shown to reduce recurrences by 30-50% and improve survival. Unfortunately, it is estimated from large population databases that up to 35-40% of patients may discontinue adjuvant endocrine therapy before completing the recommended 5 years for various reasons, and non-adherence may reduce survival.

The current protocol is a pilot study in women with hormone receptor positive breast cancer who are beginning adjuvant endocrine therapy, the purpose of which is to assess the feasibility of a two-way text messaging application, with goals for a larger randomized control study to assess if the application will increase adherence and therefore improve disease free survival. This application includes daily text message medication reminders and periodic assessment of side effects and barriers to medication adherence and simultaneously offers assistance for treatment related issues. The investigators will collect information on QOL and financial burden during the 3 month period and will correlate these metrics with adherence. This larger randomized control study would be the first such interventional study to increase adherence with adjuvant endocrine therapy in breast cancer in the US. Our larger randomized control trial would provide the first longitudinal prospectively collected information on QOL, financial burden and adherence over the entire 5-year treatment period in the routine clinical practice setting.

Inclusion criteria

• Patients with histologically confirmed stage I-III, estrogen and/or progesterone receptor positive, as defined by ASCO-CAP guidelines, invasive breast cancer for whom adjuvant hormonal therapy is indicated following standard NCCN practice guidelines
• Patients may enter the study before or within one month of starting endocrine treatment
• Patients with synchronous bilateral breast cancers are eligible if both tumors are hormone receptor positive
• Patient must be able to provide informed consent and agree to:
• Complete questionnaires according to the pre-specified study design
• Own a personal cell phone, agree to receive text messages on a monthly basis (including any costs), and share their personal cell phone number to receive text message reminder
• sign consent to allow research staff to contact their pharmacies to determine prescription refill dates

Exclusion criteria

• Patients with ductal carcinoma in situ