"Ma, ma, ma, ma," Malcolm said.
None of the withdrawals in the 2 MA trials were related to the therapy given trial [ 56, 57].
One of these 4 MA trials had been recategorised because it used a weak electrical current at a comfortable level (personal communication dr. Lao).
Due to the early termination of the National Cancer Institute of Canada MA-17 (MA-17) trial, its aims will never be answered.
36, 37 The National Cancer Institute of Canada (NCIC) MA 17 trial randomized 5,187 patients to letrozole for five years or to placebo, after completion of five years of tamoxifen.
Also, MA 17 trial reported an increased frequency of arthralgias in women treated with letrozole with respect to those in the placebo arm (25.3% vs 20.6%; p < 0.001) (Goss et al 2005).
The MA 17 trial and the NSABP B-33 reported improvement of disease outcome by long-term endocrine treatment with an AI as well (Goss et al, 2003; Mamounas et al, 2008).
In postmenopausal women, the MA P3 trial indicated that exemestane reduced risk by 65% after 35 months median follow-up [ 40] requiring confirmation with additional aromatase inhibitor (AI) prevention studies.
The MA 17 trial was the first to demonstrate a distinct disease-free survival (DFS) benefit for additional 5 years of letrozole vs placebo after 5 years of tamoxifen (Goss et al, 2003).
The conclusion is that block-sequential delivery of anthracycline in E-CMF produces a similar treatment effect to that seen in the MA-5 trial, but because the cumulative dose of epirubicin in MA-5 is nearly twice than that it our trial, the rate of leukaemia is five times more common in the Canadian trial.
The MA-17 trial compared the use of letrozole with placebo for 5 years, following 5 years of tamoxifen.
