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Nausea and vomiting during the first 24 postoperative hours after breast surgery were studied. Ninety patients scheduled for elective breast surgery were randomly assigned to one of three anaesthetic methods: total intravenous anaesthesia with propofol, or propofol or thiopental for induction followed by isoflurane anaesthesia. All three groups received fentanyl for peroperative analgesia. A total of 46 (51%) patients experienced emetic sequelae: 19 (21%) complained about nausea and another 27 (30%) vomited once or more during the postoperative course. More than 50% of the patients with nausea and 70% with vomiting first suffered from these symptoms in the surgical wards after leaving the postoperative unit. Nausea and vomiting were seen in 18 (60%), 13 (43%) and 15 (50%) for the groups propofol-propofol, propofol-isoflurane and thiopental-isoflurane, respectively. In conclusion, every second patient experienced nausea or vomiting after breast surgery, the majority of these emetic symptoms occurring after leaving the postoperative unit. Propofol for induction or as a main anaesthetic did not make any major difference with regard to postoperative nausea or vomiting.

Prophylactic treatment with the anti-estrogen tamoxifen may reduce the risk of breast cancer because estrogens are thought to act as promoters in the pathogenesis of the disease. This article presents results on the incidence of contralateral new primary tumors among 1846 postmenopausal breast cancer patients included in a randomized trial of adjuvant tamoxifen therapy for 2 or 5 years after surgery versus no adjuvant endocrine therapy. The median follow-up was 7 years (range, 3-13 years). There was a significant reduction of contralateral breast cancer in the 931 patients in the tamoxifen group versus that in the 915 control patients (29 versus 47 cases, respectively; P = .03). The cumulative incidence at 10 years in the tamoxifen group and the control group was 5% and 8%, respectively. Analysis of the relative hazard of contralateral tumor over time showed that the benefit with tamoxifen therapy was greatest during the first 1-2 years, but there was a continued risk reduction during the entire follow-up period, i.e., more than 10 years after cessation of treatment. There was no significant difference in the number of contralateral cancers in the patients randomly assigned to 2 or 5 years of treatment, but the 95% confidence interval of the relative hazard was wide. The proportion of estrogen receptor-negative contralateral breast cancers was higher in the tamoxifen group than in the control group. There was no difference, however, between the two groups in recurrence-free survival time from the diagnosis of the contralateral cancer.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

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