Sibylle Loibl, MD, of the German Breast Group, discusses the first phase III results from the PENELOPE-B study of palbociclib combined with endocrine therapy in patients with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative primary breast cancer who are at high risk for relapse after neoadjuvant chemotherapy (Abstract GS1-02).
In her recent study, Debra A. Pratt, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic, showed that when breast cancer treatment using any of three modalities takes longer than 38 weeks, it is associated with a decrease in survival, regardless of the receptor status. Patients with breast cancer who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy were more likely to take longer than 38 weeks to complete treatment than those undergoing surgery first (Abstract S11-34 ).
Lee S. Schwartzberg, MD, of the West Cancer Center, discusses phase III results from the CONTESSA study, which showed that an all-oral regimen of tesetaxel plus a reduced dose of capecitabine significantly improved progression-free survival compared with capecitabine alone in patients with HER2-negative, hormone receptor–positive metastatic breast cancer previously treated with a taxane (Abstract GS4-01).
Editor's note: On March 22, 2021, Odonate Therapeutics announced it was discontinuing the development of tesetaxel and will close the company's operations. Read more here.
Sara A. Hurvitz, MD, of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, discusses phase III data from the ASCENT study of the antibody-drug conjugate sacituzumab govitecan vs chemotherapy in patients with previously treated metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (Abstract GS3-06).
Elizabeth A. Mittendorf, MD, PhD, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, summarizes her plenary talk, which featured the uncertainties in treatment knowledge: excision of postchemotherapy calcifications; the best sentinel lymph node biopsy technique for patients with node-positive disease who convert to node-negative disease with neoadjuvant chemotherapy; whether immunohistochemistry should be routinely used for sentinel lymph node evaluation; and the role of radiation therapy in this patient population.
Roisin M. Connolly, MD, of University College Cork, discusses phase III results from the E2112 trial, which showed exemestane plus entinostat did not improve survival in aromatase inhibitor–resistant advanced HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer (Abstract GS4-02).
