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The study is trying to find out if a ‘tumour shrinking’ period with an endocrine therapy aromatase inhibitor, to treat the breast cancer before surgery, leads to a smaller operation and better recovery.

The treatment can be broken down into two periods. The first is a period of endocrine therapy before surgery known as “neo-adjuvant endocrine therapy” if used, this is to shrink the cancer before surgery. The second is a period of endocrine therapy after surgery (known as “adjuvant endocrine therapy”), which usually lasts for 5 or 10 years and is used to reduce the risk of the cancer from coming back.

This diagram may help explain this:

Dr Jess Scaife's visual representation of using the pre-surgical endocrine therapy in EndoNET to shrink the breast tumour and the post-surgical endocrine therapy to prevent it coming back.