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Pathologic nodal status/breast tumor response following neoadjuvant chemotherapy can be used to predict locoregional recurrence in women with operable, palpable breast cancer (T1-3, N0-1, M0) previously treated with mastectomy or lumpectomy plus radiotherapy. These results from the combined...
Then writer and editor Babette Rosmond was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1971, the second wave of the Women’s Liberation Movement that began in the mid-1960s was in its infancy. Still, when told by her doctor that she would need a radical mastectomy—a procedure developed by William Stewart...
While packing a punch in terms of clinical benefit, everolimus plus exemestane can also be a tough pill to swallow for many patients. The management of the potential toxicities associated with this new regimen was addressed at the 2012 Breast Cancer Symposium by Matthew J. Ellis, MB, PhD, of...
For the treatment of endocrine-sensitive metastatic breast cancer, the combination of an mTOR inhibitor and an endocrine agent represents a promising new option. At the 2012 Breast Cancer Symposium, the 18-month update of BOLERO-2, which tested therapy with everolimus (Afinitor) plus exemestane,...
Commenting on the PHARE trial and HERA update presented at ESMO, ASCO President Sandra M. Swain, MD, of Washington Hospital Center’s Washington Cancer Institute, said “Today we have seen that 12 months of trastuzumab is better than 6 months, and 12 months is the same as 2 years of treatment, so...
For HER2-positive early breast cancer, 1 year of treatment with trastuzumab (Herceptin)—rather than 6 months or 2 years—remains the standard of care, based on two pivotal studies presented at the 2012 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress. The optimal duration of anti-HER2 adjuvant ...
Nine women on my mother’s side of the family have been diagnosed with breast cancer, and nearly half have died from their disease, including my mother. With odds like these, I was determined to do what I could to stay ahead of this dreaded monster I thought was surely coming for me. First Tests...
Insensitivity of HER2-amplified breast cancer to trastuzumab (Herceptin) has been associated with both changes in HER2 expression and activation of the PI3K-AKT pathway in laboratory studies. Chandarlapaty and colleagues from Memorial- Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York and Fox Chase Cancer...
Shim and colleagues from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, and Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta have recently shown that the HIV protease inhibitor nelfinavir (Viracept) is a selective inhibitor of HER2-positive breast cancer...
A 7-year follow-up of the phase III National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) protocol B-31 found that the cumulative difference in the rate of cardiac events was 3.1% between patients with HER2-positive, node-positive breast cancer who received trastuzumab (Herceptin) in addition ...
Nektar Therapeutics announced that the FDA has designated etirinotecan pegol (NKTR-102) as a Fast Track development program for the treatment of patients with locally recurrent or metastatic breast cancer progressing after treatment with an anthracycline, a taxane, and capecitabine (ATC)....
Molecular breast imaging, also known as breast-specific gamma imaging, was a key topic of discussion at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) Annual Meeting, held recently in Chicago. Molecular breast imaging can detect breast cancer missed by mammography, according to clinical data...
Although patients may feel anxious waiting weeks from the time of their first doctor visit to evaluate their breast until they have breast cancer surgery, new findings from Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia show that these waits are typical in the United States. Results were published...
When the dates were picked for the 54th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO), no one could have anticipated that the meeting would coincide with Hurricane Sandy’s devastation of parts of the northeast. As the storm approached on Monday and Boston shut down its...
“Breast cancer in the geriatric population is a major health issue. Of the more than 230,000 new cases diagnosed annually, somewhere between 40% and 50% will occur in women 65 and over. Furthermore, the elderly population has been and will continue to increase exponentially over time,” stated Meena ...
Chronologic age alone should not preclude use of radiation in elderly women with early breast cancer, suggest two studies presented at the 54th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO). Both studies showed a survival improvement in elderly women with early breast cancer ...
An analysis of Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) data from 1976 through 2008 “suggests that whatever the mortality benefit, breast-cancer screening involved a substantial harm of excess detection of additional early-stage cancers that was not matched by a reduction in late-stage...
It’s not clear to me—and my doctors can’t say with any certainty—whether taking birth control pills for many years had anything to do with my getting breast cancer 3 years ago, at age 44. But the cancer growing in my left breast was diagnosed as stage I, estrogen receptor–positive. Although I never ...
Whole-genome DNA analysis prospectively identified alterations in metastatic tumors that could be individually targeted with molecular agents, in a study presented at the 2012 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress by Fabrice André, MD, of Institut Gustave-Roussy, Villejuif, France....
Achieving a pathologic complete response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy does not always reduce the aggressiveness of breast cancer surgery, according to an analysis of the NeoALLTO trial presented at the 2012 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress in Vienna.1 Carmen Criscitiello, MD, of ...
Ten-year follow-up of the two-part UK Standardisation of Breast Radiotherapy Trials (START) supported the 5-year findings, demonstrating that a 3-week course of adjuvant radiation therapy is equivalent to a 5-week course of radiation for women with invasive breast cancer. The update was presented...
Five years of tamoxifen has long been considered the standard of care as adjuvant therapy for women with estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer. However, extending tamoxifen treatment for 10 years reduced the risk of dying by 29% during the second decade after diagnosis compared with standard...
Adding temsirolimus (Torisel) to letrozole did not improve progression-free survival in patients with aromatase inhibitor–naive, estrogen receptor (ER)-positive advanced breast cancer, but exploratory analysis indicated the combination could benefit postmenopausal patients ≤ 65. In their Journal of ...
Women who are diagnosed with breast cancer before age 55 and have a first-degree family history of bilateral disease have risks of contralateral breast cancer similar to women with deleterious mutations of BRCA1 and BRCA2, according to a study recently published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, ...
"Practice-changing" is the term several physicians and researchers used when asked by the media to describe the results of a study showing that extending tamoxifen therapy from 5 to 10 years for women with estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast cancer further reduced recurrence and mortality....
James F. Holland, MD, began his journey into oncology when it was still a nascent discipline, working alongside groundbreaking pioneers in the field such as Drs. Emil “Tom” Frei and C. Gordon Zubrod. Dr. Holland recently shared a glimpse of his role in oncology’s formative years with The ASCO Post. ...
Imagine this common clinical scenario: A 64-year-old woman presents with a new abnormality on a mammogram. A core needle biopsy and subsequent partial mastectomy reveal a 1.8-cm invasive ductal carcinoma. Sentinel lymph nodes are negative for cancer. The tumor is moderately differentiated and is...
Dune Medical Devices, Inc, announced that the FDA has granted Premarket Approval to the MarginProbe System, the company’s breakthrough intraoperative tissue assessment tool for early-stage breast cancer surgery. The technology significantly improves surgeons’ ability to intraoperatively identify...
While a global phase III trial failed to meet its primary endpoint in showing an overall or progression-free survival benefit for eribulin (Halavan) in metastatic breast cancer, a trend toward greater efficacy than capecitabine (Xeloda) was observed, researchers reported at the 2012 San Antonio...
A proportion of patients with breast cancer whose tumors test HER2-negative for gene amplification on fluorescence in situ hybridization or immunohistochemistry harbor HER2 mutations that are amenable to treatment with anti-HER2–targeted therapy, according to a gene-sequencing study presented at...
Five key biologic pathways have become evident in triple-negative breast cancer tumors, and these pathways may be targetable with agents that are currently available or in development, results from an international genetic analysis revealed at the 2012 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. Justin M. ...
I knew the two tumors in my left breast were cancerous even before I got the pathology results back on my biopsy. I could clearly see the tumors on the digital mammogram my doctor ordered, and when the radiologist pointed out that they had spikes radiating from the edges and that he was scheduling...
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, and colleagues at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, have developed a novel computer algorithm to quantify breast density based on analysis of a screening mammogram. Increased levels of mammographic breast density have been shown in...
Subcutaneous administration of trastuzumab might offer improvements in patient convenience and resource use compared with conventional intravenous administration (Herceptin). A new subcutaneous trastuzumab formulation containing a fixed dose of 600 mg and recombinant human hyaluronidase PH-20...
From the initial discovery of the HER2 family of receptors in the mid-1980s to the present, a “wealth of riches” has been uncovered in terms of agents that can target pathways relevant to this aggressive breast cancer type, notes Hope S. Rugo, MD, Director of Breast Oncology and Clinical Trials...
In 1990, Harold P. Freeman, MD, established the nation’s first patient navigation program at Harlem Hospital Center in New York (see accompanying article here). Since then, Dr. Freeman’s vision has gained national attention and is currently being looked at in a demonstration project across multiple ...
The 2012 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium featured more than 2,500 abstracts and lectures, including timely research in the field and discussions for scientists and clinicians alike. In addition to nearly two dozen in-depth reports from the meeting, The ASCO Post brings readers the following...
In the treatment of postmenopausal estrogen receptor–positive women with lobular carcinoma, letrozole appears to have a greater benefit than tamoxifen, according to an analysis of this subset of patients in the Breast International Group (BIG) 1-98 trial reported at the 35th Annual San Antonio...
The combination of letrozole plus a novel oral inhibitor of cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 called PD 0332991 achieved an unprecedented improvement in progression-free survival among women with advanced estrogen receptor–positive/HER2-negative breast cancer. Median progression-free survival was 26.1...
The risk for developing a secondary malignancy after chemotherapy for breast cancer is very small, but it is statistically significantly higher than for the general population, a review of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) database revealed in a study presented at the 2012 San...
World leaders from governments, cancer organizations, and the private sector joined together recently for the first Global Women’s Cancer Summit to address the challenge of reducing the global burden of women’s cancers. The summit was hosted by Susan G. Komen for the Cure and underwritten by GE...
Breast cancer patients who achieve a pathologic complete response to neoadjuvant therapy have more favorable outcomes than those who do not, according to a meta-analysis of neoadjuvant trials presented at the 2012 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.1 Patients who achieved a pathologic complete...
In the treatment of early breast cancer, dose-dense regimens (given every 2 weeks) have proven superior to conventionally dosed chemotherapy (given every 3 weeks), but data on long-term survival are lacking. Two studies presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium evaluated the benefit of...
In the final planned joint analysis of overall survival from the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) B-31 and North Central Cancer Treatment Group (NCCTG) N9831 trials, the addition of trastuzumab (Herceptin) to paclitaxel following doxorubicin/cyclophosphamide (AC) reduced...
After being diagnosed with stage II invasive ductal carcinoma in my right breast in 2004, I did an Internet search to learn more about my treatment options so I could be prepared when I met with my oncologist to discuss my treatment plan. I was especially interested in therapies that would be...
The French UNICANCER-PACS 01 trial compared six cycles of anthracycline-based adjuvant therapy with FEC (epirubicin, cyclophosphamide, fluorouracil; FEC6) vs three cycles of FEC followed by three cycles of docetaxel (FEC/docetaxel) in patients with node-positive primary breast cancer. After...
Although sentinel lymph node biopsy is the recommended method for axillary staging of node-negative breast cancer, racial disparities in access to care were found in a study presented at the 2012 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. Black women were 12% less likely than white women with breast...
Sentinel lymph node surgery performed after neoadjuvant chemotherapy in women presenting with node-positive disease could spare many patients with breast cancer needless axillary lymph node dissection, according to a study of the American College of Surgeons Oncology Group presented at the 2012 San ...
The 21-gene recurrence score significantly predicted the risk of recurrence and death in node-positive, estrogen receptor–positive patients treated with adjuvant chemoendocrine therapy, but it did not predict benefit from the addition of paclitaxel to the regimen in a subset of patients from the...
In screening patients with esophageal cancers for HER2 status, the relative efficiency of immunohistochemistry (IHC) vs fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) has been debated. Researchers from the Mayo Clinic compared the testing strategies and have proposed an algorithm that puts IHC up front, ...