Rashmi K. Murthy, MD, on HER2-Positive Metastatic Breast Cancer: HER2CLIMB Trial of Tucatinib, Capecitabine, and Trastuzumab
2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium
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).
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).
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).
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?
Ariella B. Hanker, PhD, of UT Southwestern Medical Center, discusses data showing that breast cancers expressing co-occurring HER2 and HER3 mutations may require the addition of a phosphoinositide 3-kinase alpha inhibitor to a HER2 tyrosine kinase inhibitor (Abstract GS6-04).
