Dr. Tripathy on Maintenance Therapy in Breast Cancer

Debu Tripathy, MD, co-leader, Women's Cancer Program, University of Southern California Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses maintenance therapy for patients with breast cancer.

Maintenance therapy is a difficult topic, Tripathy admits, many trials have looked at chemotherapy, hormonal, or targeted agents, and have demonstrated varying effects. Generally, it is understood that maintenance therapy may delay progression slightly. Many trials have not shown a survival advantage.

Some maintenance therapies are more conducive to a better quality of life, such as hormonal therapy or HER2-targeted therapy. The paradigm has shifted towards evaluating maintenance therapy in specific cases.

Part of the "art of oncology," Tripathy says, lies with when to use maintenance therapy, using common sense and data.