Dr. von Minckwitz on Breast Cancer Responses

Gunter von Minckwitz, MD, PhD, Chairman, German Breast Group, Professor of Gynecology, University of Frankfurt, Germany, discusses the current unsolved medical situation regarding patients with breast cancer who do not respond to treatment.

In most breast cancer subtypes, standard treatment strategy is understood: patients with hormone receptor-positive disease receive endocrine treatment and HER2-positive patients receive the remainder of their treatment. Patients with triple-negative disease have nothing, von Minckwitz says.

According to data, adding chemotherapy in triple-negative patients before surgery demonstrates no benefit, forcing a need for new options. There are two new studies upcoming: looking at T-DM1 in HER2-positive disease for non-responding patients and looking for a CDK inhibitor in hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative disease without pathologic complete response and a high risk for relapse.