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).
Miguel Martín, MD, PhD, of the Gregorio Marañón Institute and GEICAM, discusses phase III study findings that showed no improvement in progression-free survival with palbociclib plus endocrine therapy vs capecitabine in patients with hormone receptor–positive/HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer whose disease progressed on aromatase inhibitors—although the drug combination was generally better tolerated than capecitabine (Abstract GS2-07).
Marie-Jeanne T.F.D. Vrancken Peeters, MD, PhD, of the Netherlands Cancer Institute, discusses an interim study analysis showing that ultrasound-guided core biopsies of the breast in patients with excellent response on MRI after neoadjuvant systemic therapy may not be accurate enough to safely select patients with pathologic complete response for omission of surgery (Abstract GS5-06).
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).
Rashmi K. Murthy, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses data on the efficacy and safety of tucatinib, trastuzumab, and capecitabine, a treatment regimen under investigation for patients with advanced HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer refractory to standard-of-care regimens (Abstract GS1-01).
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.