Hongchao Pan, PhD, on an Update on 5 Years of Endocrine Therapy for Early Breast Cancer
2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium
Hongchao Pan, PhD, of the University of Oxford, discusses an analysis of 86,000 women in the Early Breast Cancer Trialists’ Collaborative Group database, which showed that the risk of distant recurrence 20 years after a diagnosis of node-negative, estrogen receptor–negative early-stage breast cancer in women who discontinued endocrine therapy at 5 years is likely to be about a third lower now than in his group’s previous report (Abstract GS2-04).
Joseph Sparano, MD, of the Montefiore Medical Center, discusses three challenges:
- How can gene-expression profiles and other diagnostic tests be used to guide the use of adjuvant systemic therapy?
- Is it time to reappraise active surveillance?
- Are there diagnostic and therapeutic strategies that can identify tumors at highest risk of metastasis, and novel therapies that can block the spread of disease?
Rowan T. Chlebowski, MD, PhD, of the Lundquist Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, discusses the long-term influence of using estrogen plus progestin or estrogen alone on breast cancer incidence and mortality (Abstract GS5-00).
Javier Cortes, MD, PhD, of the IOB Institute of Oncology, discusses study findings that suggested pembrolizumab offered a prolonged survival benefit compared to chemotherapy for a subset of patients with previously treated metastatic triple-negative breast cancer. In the trial, high tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes were significantly associated with better clinical outcomes with the checkpoint inhibitor.
Gerardo Antonio Umanzor Funez, MD, of Liga Contra El Cáncer, discusses phase III findings on intravenous (IV) paclitaxel and oral paclitaxel plus encequidar (a novel P-gp inhibitor), the first orally administered taxane regimen shown to be superior to the IV formulation in terms of response and survival with less neuropathy (Abstract GS6-01).
Tari A. King, MD, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Dana-Farber/ Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center, discusses retrospective findings from the AURORA U.S. Network on molecular differences between primary tumors and metastases, a better understanding of which may help lead to more effective treatment of metastatic breast cancer (Abstract GS3-08).
