BREAST CANCER

Promising antitumor activity was seen in patients with&nbsp;heavily pretreated HER2-positive breast cancer with or without brain metastases with the use of tucatinib in combination with capecitabine, trastuzumab, or both agents, according to phase Ib findings published in <em>The Lancet Oncology</em>.

In a presentation during a controversy session at the 11th European Breast Cancer Conference, Angelo Di Leo, MD, PhD, explained where genomic signatures have shown the most benefit and potential ways forward to make recurrence scores a truly beneficial marker for clinicians to use.

The indication for the&nbsp;Orbis Paxman Hair Loss Cooling System has been expanded by the FDA to include the prevention of chemotherapy-related alopecia in patients with solid tumors, according to Paxman, the maker of the device. The system was previously approved&nbsp;to treat chemotherapy-related alopecia in patients with breast cancer.

Progression-free survival was found to be almost identical at 48 weeks with&nbsp;MYL-1401O in combination with a taxane as initial therapy followed by MYL-1401O monotherapy as maintenance versus trastuzumab in patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer, according to phase III findings of the&nbsp;HERITAGE trial. Results of the trial were presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting.

According to Pfizer, the manufacturer of the PARP inhibitor talazoparib,&nbsp;a priority review was granted by the FDA to a new drug application for this PARP inhibitor for treatment of patients with germline <em>BRCA </em>mutation&ndash;positive, HER2-negative locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer.

The 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting was a great success, with over 40,000 people in attendance and over 5000 abstracts presented from June 1-5 in Chicago, Illinois. Data from several phase III trials in lung cancer were presented, with especially significant results in non&ndash;small cell lung cancer. Other big areas during this year&rsquo;s meeting included breast, gastrointestinal, genitourinary, and hematologic cancers.

According to a preliminary prospective study presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting, half of patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer achieved disease control with a treatment combination of a poly polymerase inhibitor and an anti&ndash;PD-1 agent.

Ribociclib in combination with fulvestrant showed an improvement in progression-free survival in postmenopausal women with&nbsp;hormone receptor (HR)-positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer; the benefit was seen both in treatment-naive patients, and in patients who had received 1 prior line of therapy, according to the results from the phase III MONALEESA-3 trial presented at the ASCO Annual Meeting.

Ipatasertib, an oral AKT inhibitors, demonstrated early survival results as a part of a frontline combination regimen with paclitaxel for the treatment&nbsp;of locally advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer, according to interim results of the phase II LOTUS trial.

Adjuvant endocrine therapy alone is sufficient for patients with&nbsp;hormone receptor&ndash;positive, HER2-negative, node-negative early-stage breast cancer who have an intermediate risk of distant recurrence compared with endocrine therapy in combination with chemotherapy. Results of the phase III TAILORx trial presented during the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting showed that adjuvant endocrine therapy achieved noninferiority to chemoendocrine therapy.

According to findings of the IMPACT study discussed at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting, overall survival was improved with personalized therapy based on tumor molecular profiling in patients with advanced, hard-to-treat cancers.

Combination taselisib plus fulvestrant demonstrated a modest progression-free survival benefit of 2 months compared with fulvestrant alone for the treatment of patients with estrogen receptor&ndash;positive, <em>PIK3CA</em>-mutant locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer.

Optimizing the Management of HER2+ Inflammatory Breast Cancer

In patients with HER2-positive early breast cancer, 6 months of adjuvant treatment with&nbsp;trastuzumab (Herceptin)&nbsp;was noninferior for disease-free survival compared with the standard 12-month schedule, according to findings from the phase III PERSEPHONE trial presented ahead of the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting.

Distinctive&nbsp;biologic features of breast cancer in men were determined in a recent&nbsp;analysis of clinical characteristics, gene expression, and 21-gene Breast Recurrence Score, which also&nbsp;suggested that that RS testing may have an important prognostic role for both men and women.

While PARP inhibitors have demonstrated success in ovarian cancer previously, they are finally impacting the treatment paradigm for patients with <em>BRCA</em>-positive breast cancers, according to Nadine M. Tung, MD.&nbsp;

Everolimus proved to be effective tool for overcoming endocrine resistance in postmenopausal women with ER-positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer that have become resistant to aromatase inhibitor therapy.

Tiffany A. Traina, MD, a medical oncologist at Weill Cornell Medicine, discusses the current treatment landscape for patients with triple-negative breast cancer.

The FDA approved several indications throughout the month of April 2018.&nbsp;A number of drugs were granted priority review and Fast Track designation. The FDA also halted all clinical trials using&nbsp;tazemetostat as treatment, and new initiatives were introduced&nbsp;to help ease the development of genetic and genomic-based tests.&nbsp;Check out our list of all FDA happenings from April 2018.

When findings of larotrectinib,&nbsp;a pan-TRK&nbsp;inhibitor co-developed by Bayer and Loxo Oncology, that generated significant excitement for the treatment of both adult and pediatric patients with TRK fusion cancers,&nbsp;were presented during the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting, the small molecule was lauded as a future standard of care for patients with advanced solid tumors harboring a TRK fusion.