BREAST CANCER

Many important issues will be addressed in the presentations at the 36th San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS), held annually in San Antonio, Texas, this year December 10-14.

Lawrence N. Shulman, MD,discusses the results of the CALGB 40101 trial.

Julie R. Brahmer, MD, from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses the outlook for immunotherapies in cancer care.

Richard S. Finn, MD, discusses the aurora kinase inhibitor AMG900.

Melissa L. Pilewskie, MD, assistant attending physician, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, comments on outcomes and guidelines for MRI in patients with DCIS.

Torsten O. Nielsen, MD, PhD, FRCPC, a professor of pathology at the University of British Columbia, discusses the difficulties when using Ki67 to measure proliferation in breast cancer.

Hope S. Rugo, MD, from the University of California, San Francisco, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses new guidelines for the treatment of patients with metastatic breast cancer.

Aditya Bardia, MD, MPH, attending physician, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, discusses the dual targeting of the HER2 receptor in patients with breast cancer.

Brian Leyland-Jones, MBBS, PhD, gives an overview of a trial that looks at all aspects of sequencing in breast cancer.

Determination of HER2 status has become an important part of the workup of patients with advanced esophagogastric cancer, given recent data from a phase III trial (ToGA) indicating that trastuzumab, an anti-HER2 monoclonal antibody, prolongs survival in these patients.

James "Tate" T. Thigpen, MD, professor of medicine, director of medical oncology, University of Mississippi School of Medicine, discusses overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) as endpoints in ovarian cancer trials.

Kathy S. Albain, MD, discusses staging versus biology in breast cancer.

Minetta Liu, MD, discusses the limitations of radiology in the treatment of patients with metastatic breast cancer.

Naomi B. Boekel, MSc, Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, Netherlands, discusses DCIS patients' risk of dying from cardiovascular disease.

Elizabeth Mittendorf, MD, PhD, discusses the use of peptide vaccines for the treatment of breast cancer.

Aditya Bardia, MD, MPH, discusses recent advancements in the field of breast cancer.

Updated recommendations for HER2 testing in breast cancer have been released by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the College of American Pathologists (CAP).

Denise A. Yardley, MD, senior investigator, Sarah Cannon Research Institute, discusses the role of Afinitor (everolimus) in breast cancer and the BOLERO trials.

Deanna J. Attai, MD, surgeon, president, Center For Breast Care, Burbank, CA, discusses the overdiagnosis of breast cancer.

The FDA has approved pertuzumab (Perjeta), the first neoadjuvant treatment for patients with breast cancer.

Melissa L. Pilewskie, MD, assistant attending physician, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, gives an overview of the background and results from a study that analyzed perioperative MRI and recurrence rates in women with DCIS.

A subgroup analysis showed that certain patients with breast cancer may benefit more from eribulin, and quality of life (QoL) data suggest that patients may prefer eribulin because of a lower frequency of certain adverse events.

Brian Leyland-Jones, MBBS, PhD, director of Edith Sanford Breast Cancer Research, discusses the use of erythropoiesis stimulating agents (ESAs) in patients with breast cancer.

Debu Tripathy, MD, discusses targeting HER2 in breast cancer.

Komal L. Jhaveri, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, NYU Langone Medical Center, discusses the background and results of a study looking at crucial molecular drivers and potential therapeutic targets of inflammatory breast cancer (IBC).