BREAST CANCER

The phase III PALOMA-2 trial has shown a significant improvement in progression-free survival (PFS) for the frontline combination of palbociclib (Ibrance) and letrozole compared letrozole alone for patients with ER-positive, HER2-negative advanced or metastatic breast cancer.

The breast cancer guidelines in the United States need to be fixed, which can only be accomplished by those on the frontlines. We need oncologists to chime into the discussion.

Following a series of meetings with the FDA, Puma Biotechnology announced that it plans to delay the submission of a new drug application (NDA) until mid-2016 for neratinib.

Triple Negative Breast Cancer with Andrew Seidman, MD and Joyce O'Shaughnessy, MD

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

Three different chemotherapy regimens, each combined with bevacizumab, failed to demonstrate an advantage for patients with advanced ovarian cancer or build on results of a landmark trial reported more than a decade ago.

Sunil Verma, MD, Medical Director, Tom Baker Cancer Centre, Professor and Department Head, Oncology, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, discusses the future of immunotherapies and anti-HER2 drugs in the treatment paradigm for HER2-positive breast cancer.

Elizabeth Mittendorf, MD, PhD, associate professor, Department of Surgical Oncology, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses discovering a predictive biomarker response in vaccine therapy for patients with breast cancer.

An ongoing clinical trial has begun the process of evaluating whether the addition of a booster agent can take the anticancer activity of PD-1 directed immunotherapy to another level.

Julia White, MD, professor of Radiation Oncology, Ohio State University, discusses the pros and cons of multi-gene assays when trying to determine the risk of local recurrence in patients with breast cancer.

Verma says one of the major new understandings of the disease is that the HER2 receptor needs to be suppressed at all times within the treatment paradigm of the malignancy.

​Elizabeth Mittendorf, MD, PhD, associate professor, Department of Surgical Oncology, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses an upcoming peptide vaccine to prevent recurrence in patients with breast cancer.

Partridge says that the current school of thought is younger women should be treated the same as older women with breast cancer, though younger women tend to develop more aggressive breast cancer with more nodal involvement.

Perou says this research also found three expression subtypes within lobular breast cancer, one of which showed a proliferative phenotype and portended a slightly worse prognosis.

Boughey says an ongoing national clinical trial is looking at patients with ER+ breast cancer and treating them with neoadjuvant endocrine therapy.