Balancing risks and therapeutic benefits. About adjuvant tamoxifen treatment for breast cancer patients

One of the main tools available for making bio-medical decisions about the best treatment to prescribe is the risk-benefit ratio. This article takes a contextual approach to the decision-making processes involved in the prescription of adjuvant tamoxifen as a mean of reducing the risk of relapse of breast cancer. Using anthropological descriptive methods, it examines the discrepancy between patients' and doctors' perceptions of the risks and benefits of the treatment and analyses their underlying logics. Representations of women are related to cancer (fear of the disease), its treatment (efficacy) and tamoxifen (fear of hormones and aging), and can lead to a symbolic hierarchy of treatments, whereas doctors' professional practices focus mainly on the prevention of the recurrence of cancers.