Upcoming Endocrine Therapy Developments Excite in Breast Cancer
Erika Hamilton, MD, discusses how novel endocrine therapies improve treatment for metastatic breast cancer.
Erika Hamilton, MD, director of Breast Cancer Research at the Sarah Cannon Research Institute, discusses how novel endocrine therapies improve treatment for metastatic breast cancer.
She also discusses what upcoming developments in the breast cancer space she is most excited about.
Transcription:
0:09 | What we are seeing is that CDK4/6’s are really the mainstay of our treatment. In the first-line, they extended progression-free survival by almost a year, improving overall survival in many cases. However, post-CDK4/6, drugs we used to [rely on], like fulvestrant, are not performing as well as they used to. Now, we have 2 randomized trials in that second-line, post-CDK4/6 setting, where fulvestrant gives us a progression-free survival of less than 2 months, which is certainly not good enough for our patients.
0:45 | I think the unmet clinical needs are for these patients whose tumors remain endocrine-sensitive. We need better endocrine therapy so they can remain on endocrine therapies or endocrine combinations and delay having to move to other treatments with more toxicities, such as chemotherapy.
1:03 | There are a lot of trials ongoing. First, there are multiple companies developing novel endocrine agents, and they are diversifying their approaches. The area that will likely be actionable first is the second-line, post-CDK space. However, there are also ongoing trials in the first-line setting, in combination with CDK4/6 inhibitors, as a switch strategy for positive [circulating tumor] DNA, with results expected to read-out relatively soon.
1:30 | And then also, there are adjuvant trials for curative breast cancer that may replace our traditional endocrine backbones. These trials come in 2 varieties: one comparing the new agents up front with aromatase inhibitors, and another using a switch strategy after 2 to 5 years on an aromatase inhibitor. With all these trials ongoing, we will certainly have a rich data set to improve our endocrine therapies.
