The 8th CSCO Breast Cancer Summit and Beijing Breast Cancer Forum 2015 was held in Beijing from April 10 to 12, 2015. In the special session of “International Consensus, Chinese Voice 2015 St. Gallen Consensus Interpretation”, the attending experts shared the progress of St. Gallen conference and discussed the hot issues in depth. As one of the hot topics discussed at the St. Gallen meeting, should ovarian function suppression be added to endocrine therapy for breast cancer? How to identify which patients can benefit from ovarian function suppression? With these questions, Medical Pulse had the honor to invite Prof. Yongsheng Wang from Shandong Cancer Hospital to explain the benefits of ovarian function suppression and give advice on fertility protection for young breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. Benefit of ovarian function suppression The issue of ovarian function suppression and ovarian function protection was indeed one of the topics of this St. Gallen meeting. Looking back at the St. Gallen meeting two years ago (2013), tamoxifen remained a standard of care for premenopausal hormone receptor-positive endocrine therapy due to the lack of evidence-based medical evidence, and the status of ovarian function suppression in combination with tamoxifen or in combination with aromatase suppression was TBD. With the accumulation of evidence-based medicine in the past two years, especially the results of the combined analysis of the TEXT and SOFT trials presented at last year’s ASCO meeting, and the successive release of the SOFT study results at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Conference late last year, the status of ovarian function inhibition in breast cancer endocrine therapy for young breast cancer patients is gradually being recognized and affirmed. In premenopausal breast cancer patients with a high risk of recurrence, further reduction of recurrence and improvement of survival can be achieved from ovarian function suppression. Younger breast cancer patients may also benefit better from ovarian function suppression. Recommendations for fertility preservation in young breast cancer patients Ovarian function suppression and ovarian function preservation may seem to be contradictory topics for premenopausal patients with early breast cancer. In fact we should consider both tumor outcome and organismal quality of life in the treatment of tumors, especially adjuvant endocrine therapy in premenopausal hormone receptor-positive breast cancer patients. In the POEMS study published last year, hormone receptor-negative breast cancer patients were used for enrollment. Patients with hormone receptor-negative breast cancer were randomized to receive chemotherapy combined with or without goserelin for ovarian function protection. This trial did improve menstrual function, fertility and gave patients a better quality of life by using ovarian function inhibition, a pharmacologic protection. The implications of the publication of the results of this study for the St. Gallen consensus experts are also evident. This is because the vast majority of experts in the poll regarding ovarian function protection still support ovarian function protection by receiving ovarian function-suppressing drugs during chemotherapy. Of course, there are now expert consensus or guidelines for fertility protection during chemotherapy. For now, some of the more reliable fertility protection measures that are classical or have been supported by evidence include embryo freezing, egg freezing, ovarian tissue fixation, and other more effective measures. With the release of the POEMS study results, we can also include ovarian function-preserving drugs in our clinical work to achieve improved menstrual function and fertility in patients. We should also see that if a patient 100% wants to be able to have children after chemotherapy, we recommend embryo freezing and egg freezing as reliable techniques. For patients who do not have such an absolute need, but only want to preserve ovarian function and some fertility, pharmacological ovarian suppression is also a relatively inexpensive and effective measure.