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A prospective study by Palmer et al assessing the relationship of type 2 diabetes and the incidence of estrogen receptor–negative and estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer among African American women has found statistically significant evidence of an increased risk of estrogen...
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a new indication for fulvestrant (Faslodex), expanding the drug's approved use to include combined therapy with abemaciclib (Verzenio), a cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) 4/6 inhibitor, for the treatment of hormone receptor–positive,...
A cohort study in Ashkenazi Jewish women with breast cancer identified mutations other than BRCA1 and BRCA2 founder alleles that were associated with cancer risk. These results were reported by Walsh et al in JAMA Oncology. Among Ashkenazi Jewish women, three mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2...
In the phase III DATA trial reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute by Vivianne C.G. Tjan-Heijnen, MD, PhD, of the Maastricht University Medical Centre, the Netherlands, and colleagues, 12% of women with breast cancer who had chemotherapy-induced ovarian function failure...
The 10-year follow-up of the phase III TEAM trial has shown that exemestane alone and sequential tamoxifen/exemestane provide similar outcomes as adjuvant endocrine therapy in postmenopausal women with hormone receptor–positive early breast cancer. The findings were reported in The Lancet Oncology ...
An analysis of the GeparSixto trial in triple-negative breast cancer showed that adding carboplatin to neoadjuvant therapy improved pathologic complete response rate in patients without BRCA1/2 mutation and that response rates were higher overall in those with mutations, without additive effects...
Some women, because of genetic predisposition, personal, or family history, have a higher-than-average lifetime risk of developing breast cancer. For those women, earlier magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is recommended for cancer screening. But according to new findings presented at the American...
As reported by Ganz et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, long-term follow-up of patients in the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) Protocol B-31/NRG Oncology trial showed no worsening of cardiac function or quality of life with the addition of adjuvant trastuzumab...
As one of the few organizations exclusively focused on funding research for metastatic breast cancer, Twisted Pink has a unique story to tell. Based in Louisville, Kentucky, the organization was founded in 2014 by breast cancer survivor Caroline Johnson. While Ms. Johnson fully recovered from her...
In GEICAM 2006-10, the addition of fulvestrant at 250 mg/d to anastrozole did not improve 5-year disease-free survival over anastrozole alone (91.0% vs 90.8%). “Immune induction” with chemotherapy or radiotherapy appeared to enhance response to nivolumab in women with metastatic triple-negative...
The European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2017 Congress, held in Madrid, featured important news including at least seven practice-changing or potentially practice-changing trials, which are covered in recent issues of The ASCO Post. Here we present additional highlights of studies in breast ...
“At Microphone 1” is an occasional column written by Steven E. Vogl, MD, of Bronx, New York. When he’s not in his clinic, Dr. Vogl can generally be found at major oncology meetings and often at the microphone, where he stands ready with critical questions for presenters of new data. Here Dr. Vogl...
In a prospective cohort study reported by Jagsi et al in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, autologous reconstruction was associated with fewer complications and greater patient satisfaction vs implant approaches in women receiving postmastectomy radiotherapy. Study Details The...
As reported by Catherine Van Poznak, MD, of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, ASCO and Cancer Care Ontario (CCO) have collaborated in providing a focused update for the ASCO clinical practice guideline on the role of bone-modifying agents in...
Rare variants combined with background genetic risk factors may account for many unexplained cases of familial breast cancer, and knowing the specific genes involved could inform choice of prevention and treatment strategies, according to findings presented in a plenary session at the American...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Asdourian et al found that several factors considered to pose an increased risk of lymphedema were not significantly associated with the occurrence of lymphedema among women undergoing bilateral breast cancer surgery. Study Details In the...
In the Dutch phase III DATA trial reported in The Lancet Oncology by Tjan-Heinjen et al, a nonsignificant disease-free survival advantage was found for 6 vs 3 years of adjuvant aromatase inhibitor therapy after 2 to 3 years of tamoxifen in hormone receptor–positive early breast cancer....
On October 18, AstraZeneca and Merck & Co announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted and granted Priority Review to a supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) for the use of olaparib (Lynparza) tablets in patients with germline BRCA-mutated, HER2-negative...
An analysis from the phase III AZURE trial has shown that MAF-negative status was associated with a benefit and MAF-positive status, with a detriment of adjuvant zoledronic acid in early breast cancer. The analysis was reported by Coleman et al in The Lancet Oncology. Study Details The current...
I’ve always had dense breasts and avoided doing breast self-exams because I couldn’t tell if the lumpiness I was feeling was something serious or merely normal fibrous tissue. Instead I relied on my yearly mammogram to spot any early signs of cancer. Four years ago, I was once again relieved to...
No matter what a person does in life, for good and bad, his or her inherited genetic makeup follows along the way. Such was the case with British journalist Sarah Gabriel, who inherited the BRCA1 mutation from her mother, who died of ovarian cancer when Ms. Gabriel was in college. Much of her...
A study in the UK population has shown that long-term use of the long-acting insulin glargine was associated with increased risk of breast cancer among women with type 2 diabetes. The findings were reported by Wu et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Study Details The study involved a...
On October 12, Eli Lilly and Company announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Priority Review designation to its New Drug Application (NDA) for abemaciclib (Verzenio), a cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) 4/6 inhibitor. MONARCH 3 The NDA was based upon the positive interim...
Trastuzumab (Herceptin) therapy for breast cancers that express the HER2 protein does not increase the risk of complications at the surgical site in women who undergo immediate breast reconstruction after mastectomy, according to findings published by Shammas et al in the Journal of the American...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Goetz et al, an interim analysis in the phase III MONARCH 3 trial has shown a significant progression-free survival benefit with the addition of the cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) 4/6 inhibitor abemaciclib (Verzenio) to a nonsteroidal aromatase...
A self-controlled clinical trial by Hanai et al investigating the efficacy of cryotherapy for the prevention of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy in patients with breast cancer treated with paclitaxel has found that cryotherapy resulted in a clinically and statistically significant...
Breast cancer during pregnancy is relatively uncommon; however, it poses a significant clinical challenge to the patient and her multidisciplinary care team. To shed light on this difficult issue, The ASCO Post spoke with Carey K. Anders, MD, a medical oncologist and researcher at the University...
Breast cancer specialist Ann H. Partridge, MD, MPH, was born in Manhasset, Long Island, and grew up several miles east in Muttontown, New York. Since tiny Muttontown didn’t have its own school system, Dr. Partridge went to high school in nearby Locust Valley, a town on Long Island’s North Shore,...
NADIA HARBECK, MD, PhD, of the Breast Center at the University of Munich, Germany, said the findings of LORELEI are among a growing list of indications that “the future is bright for endocrine-based therapy.” Although the results were hypothesis-generating and not yet practice-changing, she...
FOR THE first time, an inhibitor of the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) pathway (taselisib) used in combination with endocrine therapy in the neoadjuvant setting improved response rates over endocrine therapy alone—with good tolerability—in women with early breast cancer, according to the phase...
NICHOLAS TURNER, MD, of The Royal Marsden and the Institute of Cancer Research in the UK, called the findings of MONARCH 3 “practice-changing.” The cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 (CDK4/6) inhibitors have answered the need for agents that target the biology of estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer, ...
THE VALUE OF cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 (CDK4/6) inhibitors in advanced breast cancer became ever more certain with the announcement of interim data from MONARCH 3, which evaluated abemaciclib in combination with endocrine therapy as first-line therapy for hormone receptor–positive/HER2-negative...
Historically, randomized controlled trials have served as the state-of-the-art method for determining the efficacy and safety of new, innovative treatment regimens for patients with cancer and other diseases. It is imperative that such trials are carefully designed to ensure that they are...
On September 29, Roche announced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted the company’s supplemental Biologics License Application and granted Priority Review for pertuzumab (Perjeta), in combination with trastuzumab (Herceptin) and chemotherapy, for adjuvant treatment of...
As reported in JAMA by Giuliano et al, 10-year overall survival in the ACOSOG Z0011 (Alliance) trial with sentinel lymph node dissection (SLND) alone was noninferior to that with axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) in women with clinical T1 or T2 invasive breast cancer, no palpable axillary...
Currently, two medications have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to reduce the risk of breast cancer: tamoxifen and raloxifene. Both medications, selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs), have been shown to reduce the risk for breast cancer by up to 50% in prevention...
A higher-dose, shorter form of radiation is safe, effective, and no more damaging to the breast tissue or skin of breast cancer patients under age 50 than it is in older patients. This is the finding of a study led by researchers from Perlmutter Cancer Center at New York University (NYU)...
A higher-dose, shorter form of radiation is safe, effective, and no more damaging to the breast tissue or skin of women with breast cancer under age 50 than it is in older patients, according to findings led by researchers from Perlmutter Cancer Center at NYU Langone Health, and presented at the...
My father, who was a physician, taught me at an early age to pay attention to any changes in my body. His advice has stood me in good stead for more than 83 years and probably saved my life more than once. In 1984, just before I turned 50, something was bothering me about my right breast. I could...
The ASCO Post issue of June 25, 2017, did an excellent job of summarizing the results and controversy generated by the initial results of the APHINITY trial, reported at the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting and published simultaneously online in The New England Journal of Medicine.1 With a median follow-up ...
The information contained in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes actively recruiting clinical studies focused on patients with breast cancer. These studies highlight neoadjuvant combination therapy, cell vaccines, novel imaging techniques, radiotherapy, and more. All of the studies are...
Radiation therapy following mastectomy for intermediate-stage, high-risk breast cancer can be shortened from 5 to 3 weeks while maintaining tumor control rates in the breast and surrounding region that are equivalent to conventional treatment, according to research presented by Sun et al at the...
A study using linked Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results–Medicare data has shown a significantly increased risk of all-cause mortality and a nonsignificantly increased risk of breast cancer–specific mortality in elderly breast cancer patients with preexisting severe mental...
A new survey finds breast cancer patients’ actual radiation therapy experiences largely exceeded their expectations. The survey, which addressed the fears and misconceptions regarding radiation therapy for breast cancer, found that more than three-fourths of the breast cancer patients...
Shulian Wang, MD, of the National Cancer Center in Beijing, and Benjamin Movsas, MD, of the Henry Ford Health System, discuss study results on the use of hypofractionated radiation therapy after mastectomy for the treatment of high-risk breast cancer (Abstract PL01).
According to the American Cancer Society, about 316,120 new cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed this year, and over 40,000 women will die of the disease. Between 10% and 20% of women diagnosed with cancer are current smokers. Now, a prospective study by Parada et al investigating whether...
A comparative analysis of outcomes with two different trastuzumab (Herceptin)-based adjuvant regimens in older women with early HER2-positive breast cancer found little difference in safety and efficacy between treatments. The study was reported by Katherine E. Reeder-Hayes, MD, MBA, of the...
Triple-negative breast cancer is a highly aggressive breast cancer that lacks hormone receptors and overexpression of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2/neu), and, therefore, there are no targeted treatments available for the cancer. Triple-negative breast cancer afflicts African...
Despite the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendation that women between the ages of 50 and 74 undergo mammography every 2 years, only about 50% of American Muslim women do so, compared with 67% of all American women. A study by Padela et al investigating the mammography-related barrier...
In a single-center study reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice, Losk et al found that an intervention including surgeon initiation of gene-expression profile testing with Oncotype DX significantly reduced the time to testing, receipt of testing results, and initiation of chemotherapy in...