BREAST CANCER

A follow-up benefits analysis of adding denosumab to aromatase inhibitor (AI) therapy shows the agent not only helps prevent fractures, it also reduces risk of recurrence and death in postmenopausal women with HR-positive breast cancer.

Palbociclib (Ibrance) has been given a priority review by the FDA. The treatment will be looked at as a combination with fulvestrant in pretreated patients with HR-positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer, said Pfizer, the manufacturer of the CDK 4/6 inhibitor.

A combination of capecitabine and adjuvant therapy dropped the risk of recurrence by 30% and prolonged survival by 40% for patients with residual breast cancer post-neoadjuvant chemotherapy and surgery, according to phase III data.

Jimmie Holland, MD, Wayne E. Chapman Chair in Psychiatric Oncology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, on the development of genomic medicine in oncology.

Ilaria Muller, PhD student, Cardiff University, on a possible common antigen between thyroid cancer and breast cancer.

Erika P. Hamilton, MD, on ONT-380 for HER2-positive breast cancer and the treatment's ability to cross the blood-brain barrier.

Therapies in the adjuvant setting like trastuzumab (Herceptin) and neratinib have shown more durable responses in patients with HER2+ breast cancer, as opposed to long-term treatment, said Mohammad Jahanzeb, MD.

Data showed patients with the HER2-enriched subtype had a high pCR with both single and dual anti-HER2 therapy and a high level of intertumoral heterogeneity.

Mark Robson, MD, clinic director of the Clinical Genetics Service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, talks about how DNA-damaging agents function in treating breast cancer.

A new method to elucidate the clonal relationship between tumors used tissues and clinical details from patients with contralateral breast cancer, and for the first time, next-generation sequencing.

A recent meta-analysis published in The Oncologist found that metformin use in patients with simultaneous diabetes and breast cancer improved overall survival (OS) and cancer-specific survival.

Howard A. "Skip" Burris, III, MD, president, Clinical Operations, chief medical officer and executive director of Drug Development, Sarah Cannon, talks about chemotherapy in the era of personalized medicine.

Mohammad Jahanzeb, MD, medical director, Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at Deerfield Beach, talks about the future of treatment for patients with HER2-positive breast cancer with drugs like neratinib and trastuzumab.

Despite the small size of the pigeon brain, our Columba livia counterparts have performed just as well as humans in distinguishing between normal tissue and breast cancer tissue in a study performed by researchers at the University of Iowa and the University of California, Davis.

Patrick Borgen, MD, says this is due to earlier diagnoses, better class prediction through genomic profiling and characteristics of the disease, as well as targeted therapies.

Sylvia Adams, MD, medical oncologist, NYU Langone Medical Center, talks about the the importance of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILS) and how they can mark which patients will respond to immunotherapy use in triple negative breast cancer (TNBC). She discussed this topic at the recent Chemotherapy Foundation Symposium. 

Findings from a recent study suggest that women whose breast cancers have a higher proportion of blood vessels may benefit more from neoadjuvant treatment with bevacizumab than women whose tumors have a lower density of blood vessels.

Dr. Judy C. Boughey talks about a study examining all patients at Mayo Clinic that underwent a nipple-sparing mastectomy for breast cancer and comparing those with positive lymph nodes to those with negative lymph nodes.

Christiane Kuhl, MD, Professor of Radiology and Vice Chairman of the Radiological department, Director of the Division of Oncologic Imaging and Interventional Therapy, Bonn University, talks about the over diagnosis of breast cancer through mammography screenings.

Hans-Christian Kolberg, MD, doctor of Medicine, Marien Hospital Bottrop in Bottrop, Germany, discusses neoadjuvant chemotherapy with docetaxel, carboplatin, and weekly trastuzumab for patients with HER2-positive early breast cancer.

A new chemotherapy regimen demonstrated significant clinical activity in patients with HER2-positive, early-stage breast cancer, according to long-term follow-up data.

Clifford A. Hudis, MD, FACP, Vice President for Government Relations and Chief Advocacy Officer, Chief, Breast Medicine Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, talks about the vague understanding medical professional currently have of HER-2 breast cancer and its resistance to certain therapies.

Kimberly L. Blackwell, MD, professor of Medicine, assistant professor of Radiation Oncology, Duke Cancer Institute, discusses upcoming trials for the HER2-antibody margetuximab.

Rebecca Feldman, PhD, molecular science liaison/research scientist, Caris Life Sciences, discusses caveolin-1, which has the potential to play a major role in the treatment of breast cancer.

Researchers have begun examining the latest round of studies for a minimally invasive breast cancer therapy freezing the cancer cells as a means of killing the tumor.