Description

The celebration of bringing the first issue to publication had hardly started when we faced the challenge of the contents for the second issue. We are fortunate to have received a good response to our efforts and this has strengthened our resolve to provide a comprehensive framework to continuing education to breast surgeons and physicians. The leading article touches issues of Clinical Governance that are prevalent in hospital discussions all over the country. We present a very timely review on aromatase inhibitors, as last month, at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Meeting, preliminary results of the ATAC study demonstrated that anastrozole (Arimidex) is significantly more effective than tamoxifen in early breast cancer. Despite the short follow-up, this early analysis is the first time ever that the established benefits of tamoxifen in this group, have been surpassed by another treatment, and it marks an incredibly important breakthrough. The ATAC study is one of the largest adjuvant breast cancer trials ever conducted and further results will be interesting. The review we present, provides insights into the role of aromatase inhibitors in breast cancer.

We are keen to develop the journal as a forum for discussion and a resource that is easily available to the practising breast surgeon and that allows the CME needs to be met. We sincerely hope our readers will find this a worthwhile addition to the material available. We would welcome our readers’ views on the content of future issues.