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March 2013, Highlights - Hormone Therapy
For the treatment of estrogen receptor (ER)-positive early breast cancer, 10 years of treatment with tamoxifen yields better outcomes than 5 years of treatment, according to an analysis from the international ATLAS study that was presented at the 2012 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.
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March 2013, Highlights - Breast Cancer
The molecular make-up of triple- negative breast cancer is becoming better understood, and new evidence suggests that the main biologic pathways can be targeted with drugs, according to Justin Balko, PharmD, PhD, Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Researcher, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville. In his study on genetic alterations, 90% of the patients had mutations in 5 well-recognized pathways, and drugs developed to target these markers.
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March 2013, Highlights - Chemotherapy
Two studies presented in San Antonio reached conflicting conclusions regarding the value of dose-dense chemotherapy in patients with early breast cancer.
The phase 3 UK TACT2 trial compared standard chemotherapy with epirubicin plus CMF (cyclophosphamide/methotrexate/fluorouracil) with accelerated (dose-dense) epirubicin in node-positive or in high-risk, node-negative early breast cancer. The current report focused on the impact of accelerating epirubicin chemotherapy; the capecitabine/CMF comparison is premature.
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March 2013, Highlights - Chemotherapy
Fewer than 0.5% of patients with breast cancer develop leukemia associated with chemotherapy, but this is 60% higher than the proportion documented in a previous analysis, according to a report based on the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) database.
“Adjuvant chemotherapy was associated with a cumulative 10-year incidence of leukemia of about 0.5%, which appears to be higher than previously reported,” said Antonio Wolff, MD, Professor of Oncology at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, MD.
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March 2013, Highlights - Uncategorized
A trend toward improved overall survival (OS) with eribulin mesylate (Halaven) was demonstrated in the global phase 3 clinical trial comparing this newer agent with capecitabine (Xeloda) in patients with previously treated metastatic breast cancer.
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March 2013, Highlights - Prognostic Tests
The Breast Cancer Index (BCI), a polymerase chain reaction–based assay, can predict late recurrences in estrogen receptor (ER)-positive patients, according to results from the translational arm of the Arimidex, Tamoxifen, Alone or in Combination (TransATAC) trial population.
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March 2013, Highlights - Sentinel Node Management
Axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) may not be necessary after neoadjuvant chemotherapy in most patients, according to investigators who found that sentinel lymph node (SLN) dissection correctly staged more than 90% of patients.
A study of the American College of Surgeons Oncology Group, ACOSOG Z1071, evaluated whether SLN surgery may sufficiently substitute for ALND as a less invasive procedure.
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March 2013, Highlights - Hormone Therapy
A comparison of letrozole (Femara) with tamoxifen (Nolvadex) demonstrated that the former may be superior for the treatment of postmenopausal estrogen receptor (ER)-positive patients who have lobular carcinoma, according to a subanalysis of patients in the phase 3 BIG 1-98 trial. This subanalysis further showed that for the 2 histologic subtypes of breast cancer, luminal B tumors were more responsive to treatment than luminal A tumors.
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March 2013, Highlights - Emerging Therapies
San Antonio, TX—The addition of an oral investigational agent to letrozole (Femara) for the treatment of estrogen receptor (ER)-positive metastatic breast cancer more than tripled the time spent in remission compared with endocrine therapy alone, according to a study reported at the CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.
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March 2013, Highlights - Clinical Research
A new meta-analysis confirmed that patients with breast cancer who achieve a pathologic complete response (pCR) to neoadjuvant therapy have a more favorable outcome than those who do not.
Patients who achieved a pCR had a 52% reduction in the probability of an event and a 64% reduction in the probability of death (P <.001 for both), as was shown in the meta-analysis of the Collaborative Trials in Neoadjuvant Breast Cancer (CTNeoBC).
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November 2013, Vol 4, No 9 - Economics of Cancer Care
Amsterdam, The Netherlands—The more a European Union (EU) country spends on health, the fewer the cancer-related deaths occur in that country, and there is a great disparity between Western and Eastern EU countries, according to research presented at the 2013 European Cancer Congress.
Greater wealth and higher health expenditures were strongly associated with decreased cancer mortality, as well as with increased cancer incidence, according to Felipe Ades, MD, a member of the Breast European Adjuvant Studies Team (BrEAST), a clinical trials unit and data center in Belgium.
[ Read More ]November 2013, Vol 4, No 9 - Economics of Cancer Care
Amsterdam, The Netherlands—With the development of targeted therapies, there has been a clear evolution in the pathway to the approval of drugs by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and a rapid approval of a drug after phase 1 clinical trials, which show definitive proof of activity and safety, and “breakthrough” designation, are now possible.
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