Joerg Heil, MD, PhD, on Image-Guided Vacuum-Assisted Breast Biopsy
2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium
Joerg Heil, MD, PhD, of the University Hospital Heidelberg, discusses findings on how accurately this technique can diagnose residual disease and pathologic complete response after neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients with breast cancer. These data may help tailor, de-escalate, and potentially avoid unnecessary surgeries (Abstract GS5-03).
Sara M. Tolaney, MD, MPH, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses phase II findings on patients receiving T-DM1 monotherapy as adjuvant treatment for stage I HER2-positive breast cancer, a regimen associated with few recurrences in the study population (Abstract GS1-05).
Luca Gianni, MD, of the Fondazione Michelangelo, discusses findings from the NeoTRIP trial on pathologic complete response to neoadjuvant treatment with or without atezolizumab in triple-negative, early high-risk, and locally advanced breast cancer (Abstract GS3-04).
Hope S. Rugo, MD, of the University of California San Francisco Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses trial data on margetuximab plus chemotherapy, which improved progression-free survival in patients with previously treated HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer when compared with trastuzumab plus chemotherapy. Maturing data comparing overall survival also provides new insights (Abstract GS1-02).
Jack Cuzick, PhD, of Queen Mary University of London, discusses the substantially greater benefits of anastrozole as compared with tamoxifen in terms of preventing breast cancer, with no increase in fractures or other reported serious side effects (Abstract GS4-04).
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?