BREAST CANCER

Extending aromatase inhibitor (AI) treatment to 10 years post-treatment reduced the risk of recurrence in women with early-stage HR-positive breast cancer by more than a third. Findings of the MA.17R trial also showed that adjuvant therapy extension did not create any new toxicities or quality of life complications for patients.

Palbociclib (Ibrance), when added to letrozole, increased the median progression-free survival (PFS) rate in patients with ER-positive, HER2-negative advanced or metastatic breast cancer by >10 months, according to results from the phase III PALOMA-2 trial presented at the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting.

Maura N. Dickler, MD, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses next steps with abemaciclib following the results of the single-arm MONARCH 1 trial.

In patients with HER2-positive early breast cancer, data from a phase III trial has shown a significantly higher pathological complete response (pCR) rate with neoadjuvant docetaxel plus carboplatin plus trastuzumab plus pertuzumab versus trastuzumab emtansine plus pertuzumab.

Durvalumab, an investigational PD-L1 targeting drug, is the subject of a unique ongoing basket trial being conducted by the National Institutes of Health, and was part of a single arm phase I combination therapy study of the drug in 19 patients with cervical cancer, triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), ovarian cancer, or uterine leiomyosarcoma.

Findings from a population-based study reported at the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting revealed that young black women with breast cancer are much less likely to undergo testing for the BRCA gene or to get risk reducing prophylactic mastectomy or salpingo-oophorectomy than other women.

Herceptin, a biosimilar version of trastuzumab, produced comparable efficacy rates and safety profile as trastuzumab in patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer, according to research presented at the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting.

Neratinib, an experimental TKI being developed for breast cancer, achieved a 36% clinical benefit rate in a phase II trial, according to a poster presented June 5, 2016 at the ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago.

When tested in heavily pretreated patients with refractory, hormone-receptor (HR)-positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer, abemaciclib, a CDK4/6 inhibitor, produced a positive response rate of approximately 20%.

An ongoing phase IIa basket study is evaluating treating patients who have molecular abnormalities with agents that target the HER2, BRAF, Hedgehog, or EGFR pathways, regardless of the patient's tumor type and the drug's original indication.

A joint analysis of the "ABC" trials comparing anthracycline versus non-anthracycline treatment in patients with high-risk, HER2-negative breast cancer has failed to demonstrate non-inferiority of the non-anthracycline regimen.

Gastric cancers with high-level clonal FGFR2 gene amplification responded to AZD4547, a selective FGFR inhibitor, in a phase II open label trial of previously treated, advanced FGFR amplified cancer. Yet tumors with multiple FGFR1 genes, low level or subclonal amplification of FGFR2 did not respond similarly to the drug.

Significant strides have been made in developing cyclin-dependent kinase 4 (CDK4) and CDK6 inhibitors to treat estrogen receptor (ER)‒positive breast cancer.

Cyclin-dependent kinase 4 (CDK4) and CDK6 inhibitors are a promising class of anticancer agents that may present effective alternatives to standard therapy for women with advanced, refractory, or relapsed hormone receptor (HR)‒positive breast cancer.

A number of highly effective cyclin-dependent kinase 4 (CDK4) and CDK6 inhibitors are currently in development as treatments for patients with metastatic breast cancer.

Inhibition of cyclin-dependent kinase 4 (CDK4) and CDK6 has been extensively studied in estrogen receptor (ER)‒driven breast cancer.

More than 20 years have passed since the cyclin-dependent kinases 4 (CDK4) and CDK6 were discovered to drive oncogenesis in several cancer types.

Sue Naeyaert, senior director of Biosimilars Policy, EMD Serono, discusses the long-term impact that biosimilars could potentially have on the field of oncology.

An upcoming study could uncover new uses for palbociclib in the post-neoadjuvant setting for hormone receptor (HR)-positive breast cancer, according to Gunter von Minckwitz, MD.

Radiation therapy may not be the answer in patients with breast cancer over the age of 70, according to Kevin Hughes, MD.

Kilian Salerno, MD, director of Breast Radiation and Soft Tissue/Melanoma Radiation, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, discusses recent updates in radiation therapy for breast cancer as discussed in the NCCN guideline.

ER+/HER2-Breast Cancer with Adam Brufsky, MD, PhD and Kimberly Blackwell, MD