BREAST CANCER

Saeed Rafii, MD, PhD, MRCP, discusses the phase Ib JAVELIN solid tumor trial. The trial looks at the anti-PD-L1 antibody avelumab in patients with locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer.

​Benjamin Smith, MD, discusses a recent study looking at local treatments in breast cancer and the complication burdens associated with them. Smith says that any complications arising in patients with breast cancer within 2 years are strongly associated with their treatments.

Shak says the study examined the prospective outcomes of 1626 women and showed that at 5 years, less than 1% of women had a distant recurrence.

Twelves said historically, chemotherapy combinations have been created utilizing empirical evidence, which he says is not a sound rationale for the combinations. He adds that due to certain biological properties of eribulin mesylate, the treatment warrants further investigation as a combination therapy.

APOBEC3B was investigated in a retrospective study of a cohort available for analysis from a Dutch study. Results shows patients with high levels of APOBEC3B had much worse outcomes compared to those with low levels.

Debu Tripathy, MD, discusses the further investigation into immunotherapy's role in treating breast cancer.

​Gordon B. Mills, MD, PhD, says individualized treatment, as opposed to treating patients solely based on their malignancy type, must happen in order to improve patient outcome.

Denise Yardley, MD, says one of the biggest challenges the malignancy poses is triple negative breast cancer's heterogeneity, resulting in medical professionals having to rely on clinical path features that do not provide enough preciseness in treatment.

Linda Vahdat, MD, discusses the antibody drug conjugate glembatumumab vedotin being used in the treatment of women with triple negative breast cancer who have a high expression of gpNMB.

The FDA has approved a new treatment consisting of a non-alcohol formulation of docetaxel in patients with breast cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, prostate cancer, gastric adenocarcinoma, and head and neck cancer.

Joanne Blum, MD, PhD, discusses the function of the oral PARP inhibitor talazoparib (BMN 673) in BRCA mutation subjects with locally advanced and/or metastatic breast cancer.

Sabine Siesling discusses breast conserving surgery versus mastectomy. Siesling says her and her team found that internationally, the survival rate of breast cancer patients is lower when a mastectomy is performed, as compared to breast conserving surgery.

​Andrew D. Seidman, MD, attending physician, Breast Cancer Medicine Service, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the shift paradigm of breast cancer treatment and the development of targeted agents that disrupt certain pathways.

Eric P. Winer, MD, discusses the survival rates of women with early stage breast cancer who received bevacizumab and/or carboplatin.

Peter Beitsch, MD, breast surgeon, Medical City Dallas Hospital, discusses a triplet of chemotherapy, trastuzumab, and pertuzumab in the adjuvant and neoadjuvant settings.

​Amanda L. Kong, MD, MS, FACS, discusses breast cancer care at high volume hospitals versus low volume hospitals. Kong says the study is the first one that looks at processes as a bundle and takes into account socioeconomic statuses of patients.

Clifford A. Hudis, MD, FACP, Vice President for Government Relations and Chief Advocacy Officer, Chief, Breast Medicine Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses carboplatin in triple-negative breast cancer and in-breast response rates.

The phase III METRIC trial is an ongoing randomized trial in triple-negative breast cancer that evaluated the safety and efficacy of the antibody-drug conjugate glembatumumab vedotin.

Breast-conserving therapy (BCT) and radiation in early-stage breast cancer has been shown to give patients about a 20% better chance of survival over the course of 10 years, moreso than their counterparts who opted had mastectomy.

Carey Anders, MD, assistant professor for the Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology and Oncology, UNC Chapel Hill, on the challenge of treating brain metastases in breast cancer. Anders says brain metastases generally portend a poor prognosis and treatment for them are currently scarce.

William Sikov, MD, associate director of Clinical Research, Program in Women

Matthew J. Ellis, MD, PhD, director, Sue Smith Breast Center at Baylor College of Medicine, discusses a recent study of palbociclib in primary breast cancer.

The PD-L1 inhibitor avelumab showcased promising overall response rates in patients with PD-L1-positive metastatic breast cancer, especially in patients with triple-negative breast cancer.

Risk complications from mastectomy plus reconstruction was doubled when compared to lumpectomy plus whole breast irradiation after adjustment for other treatment differences.

Treatment with standard neoadjuvant chemotherapy plus carboplatin and/or bevacizumab resulting in a pathologic complete response has been associated with improvement in event-free and overall survival in patients with triple-negative breast cancer.