ASCO 2015 Highlights

For patients with HER2-positive early breast cancer, 1 year of treatment with trastuzumab (Herceptin) remains the standard of care, according to the HERA trial and a subanalysis of the PHARE study.

Determining HER2 status utilizing novel central laboratory testing techniques has been shown to be more reliable than routine local HER2 testing, such as immunohistochemistry or in situ hybridization.

Ten-year disease control in patients with nonmetastatic breast cancer did not differ significantly between patients treated with a reduced-dose hypofractionated radiation therapy compared with a standard protocol, according to a study presented at the meeting.

Low-dose intraoperative radiation therapy has proved comparable with whole-breast irradiation for preventing breast cancer recurrence, according to the preliminary results of the large randomized Targeted Intraoperative Radiotherapy (TARGIT-A) trial.

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 should be recommended for patients with completely resected, isolated local or regional recurrence (ILRR) of breast cancer, and the argument is strongest for women with estrogen receptor (ER)-positive tumor recurrences, according to the results of the international Chemotherapy as Adjuvant for Locally Recurrent Breast Cancer (CALOR) trial.

Two studies presented in San Antonio reached conflicting conclusions regarding the value of dose-dense chemotherapy in patients with early breast cancer.

Chemotherapy may not necessarily be the reason that patients with breast cancer often complain of “fuzzy thinking” and difficulty solving problems, according to research showing that cognitive changes are present in some patients at baseline, and may be related to fatigue and anxiety.

>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.

Patients classified as low risk by the EndoPredict panel had a significantly lower rate of distant metastasis after 5 and 10 years of follow-up compared with patients who did not meet the test’s criteria for low risk, according to Peter Dubsky, MD, of the Breast Health Center, Associate Professor of Sur­gery, Medical University of Vienna, Austria.