Breast Cancer

Michel Velez, MD, medical oncologist at Holy Cross Hospital, discusses the management of neratinib (Nerlynx)-associated diarrhea in patients with early-stage HER2-positive breast cancer.

Kari B. Wisinski, MD, highlights modern day approaches for treating patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer.

The European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use has recommended approval of the frontline combination of atezolizumab (Tecentriq) plus nab-paclitaxel (Abraxane) for the treatment of adult patients with unresectable locally advanced or metastatic PD-L1–positive triple-negative breast cancer.

Christopher R. Chitambar, MD, FACP, discusses the research that led to the development of CDK4/6 inhibitors in metastatic HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer and the significance of the PI3K inhibitor alpelisib.

Carey Anders, MD, director, Brain and Spine Metastasis Program, Duke Cancer Institute, discussed the use of abemaciclib, a selective CDK4/6 inhibitor, in patients with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative metastatic brain cancer with brain metastases.

The European Commission has approved single-agent talazoparib for the treatment of adult patients with germline BRCA1/2-mutant, HER2-negative locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer.

Ruth O'Regan, MD, discusses current approaches to treatment escalation and de-escalation, as well as the use of retrospective molecular profiling, which may help address some unanswered questions in the field.

Ruta Rao, MD, associate professor of medical oncology, Rush University Medical Center, discusses the use of abemaciclib with or without fulvestrant for the treatment of hormone receptor–positive and HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer following prior treatment with palbociclib.

Neratinib combined with capecitabine reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 24% compared with lapatinib plus capecitabine in patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer who received at least 2 prior lines of HER2-targeted therapy.

Adding the Akt inhibitor capivasertib to fulvestrant led to a more than doubling of progression-free survival compared with fulvestrant alone in patients with endocrine-resistant estrogen receptor-positive advanced breast cancer.

Margetuximab, a novel Fc-engineered HER2-targeted antibody, improved progression-free survival compared with trastuzumab in patients with pretreated HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer in the open-label phase III SOPHIA clinical trial.

Examination of a cohort of patients with metastatic breast cancer and high mutational burden who were enrolled in the phase II Targeted Agent and Profiling Utilization Registry basket study shows that pembrolizumab monotherapy has antitumor activity in this population of heavily pretreated patients.