Breast Cancer

The addition of tucatinib to trastuzumab and capecitabine in patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer with and without brain metastases resulted in statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvements in progression-free and overall survival.

Stephen Johnston, MA, PhD, FRCP, discusses the results of the phase 3 monarchE study examining the addition of abemaciclib to endocrine therapy in patients with high-risk early hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer.

The addition of abemaciclib to endocrine therapy led to a significant reduction in the risk of invasive disease versus endocrine therapy alone in patients with high-risk early hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer.

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy with intense dose-dense epirubicin, paclitaxel, and cyclophosphamide demonstrated significant benefit in the treatment of patients with HR+/HER2- breast cancer.

The addition of neoadjuvant atezolizumab to nab-paclitaxel plus doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide significantly improved pathologic complete responses in patients with stage 2 or stage 3 triple-negative breast cancer, compared with placebo plus chemotherapy.

The addition of tamoxifen to abemaciclib resulted in an improvement in overall survival compared with abemaciclib monotherapy in in patients with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer, with benefit observed across all patient subgroups.

Treatment with sacituzumab govitecan led to a 59% reduction in the risk of disease progression or death compared with physician’s choice of single-agent chemotherapy in patients with previously treated metastatic triple-negative breast cancer.

Although the SOLAR-1 trial did not cross the prespecified O’Brien-Fleming efficacy boundary in postmenopausal patients with PIK3CA-mutant, hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer, alpelisib and fulvestrant nevertheless prolonged the median OS.

Although atezolizumab did not improve pathological complete response when added to carboplatin and nab-paclitaxel, the immunotherapy increased the pCR by 10% or more in “immune-rich” groups with high-risk and locally advanced triple-negative breast cancer, and also turned PD-L1 negative tumors positive in most immunotherapy-treated patients.

The addition of ipatasertib to paclitaxel failed to improve progression-free survival and objective response rates versus placebo plus paclitaxel in patients with PIK3CA/AKT1/PTEN-altered hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer.

A panel of breast cancer experts discuss a variety of new and emerging agents to treat patients with advanced or metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer with disease progression following treatment with at least 1 anti-HER2 therapy.

Heather ​S. Han, MD, discusses the benefit of adding pertuzumab to trastuzumab and chemotherapy in the phase 3 APHINITY trial in patients with HER2-positive early-stage breast cancer.

In our exclusive interview, Sara M. Tolaney, MD, MPH, shares insight on how risk status is being used to tailor HER2-directed therapies to patients with early-stage HER2-positive breast cancer, key trials focused on delineating optimal deescalated and escalated treatment strategies, and ongoing research in the HER2-low setting.

Howard A. “Skip” Burris, III, MD, FASCO, FACP, discusses recent advancements made in the field of triple-negative breast cancer.

Erika P. Hamilton, MD, discusses the complex treatment algorithm for HER2-positive breast cancer.

A multi-year, multi-study research collaboration between Daiichi Sankyo and Gustave Roussy Cancer Center will support the clinical, translational, and preclinical evaluation of 2 of the company’s lead antibody-drug conjugates: DS-1062 in advanced non–small cell lung cancer, and patritumab deruxtecan in metastatic breast cancer.

The FDA has issued an alert that the phase 3 IMpassion131 trial failed to show the effectiveness of atezolizumab plus paclitaxel in treatment-naïve patients with inoperable locally advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer.

Premenopausal women with breast cancer who were previously treated with radiotherapy for a primary childhood, adolescent, or young adult cancer were found to have worse breast cancer–specific survival.

Precision medicine advancements are opening a new chapter in the development of anticancer therapies that target the HER2 pathway, resulting in 3 approvals for breast cancer in less than a year and raising hopes for attacking other cancer types.

Kamran A. Ahmed, MD, discusses the impact of neratinib on patients with central nervous system metastases and HER2-positive breast cancer.

Adjuvant endocrine therapy was found to be associated with improved overall survival in patients with hormone receptor–positive, ERBB2-negative, node-negative breast cancer with small but invasive tumors.