Ralph R. Weichselbaum, MD, on Oligometastatic Cancer: The Role of Radioimmunotherapy
2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium
Ralph R. Weichselbaum, MD, of the University of Chicago, summarizes a plenary lecture in which he presented data that could guide future clinical strategies: studies supporting the basis and classification of oligometastatic disease, including breast cancer; and basic and clinical data on radioimmunotherapy (Abstract PL2).
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).
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).
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?
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).
Belinda Kingston, MB ChB, of the Institute of Cancer Research London, discusses next-generation sequencing results from the plasmaMATCH trial, including the incidence of gene alterations overall, as well as the associations with clinical and pathologic features that may help direct treatment decisions (Abstract GS3-07).