SABCS HER2-Negative Spotlight

Harold J. Burstein, MD, PhD, institute physician, associate professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses the CDK 4/6 inhibitor ribociclib and its clinical activity in patients with hormone receptor (HR)-positive breast cancer.

Patients with advanced hormone receptor (HR)-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer, and visceral metastases obtained a significant benefit from treatment with the CDK4/6 inhibitor ribociclib (LEE011) combined with letrozole, a subgroup analysis of the randomized MONALEESA-2 trial showed.

BRCA1 methylation or silencing does not predict for a better response to carboplatin over docetaxel in women with advanced triple-negative or BRCA1/2 breast cancer, according to results from a pre-planned biological analysis of the phase III TNT trial.

Continuous low-dose ribociclib shows preliminary activity, and has an acceptable safety profile as an alternative to intermittent ribociclib dosing when combined with fulvestrant in the treatment of postmenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive, <em>HER2</em>-negative advanced breast cancer.

Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) continued to show a consistent durable benefit with an additional year of follow-up for heavily pretreated patients with recurrent PD-L1-positive metastatic triple-negative breast cancer.

Recent promising findings with the neoadjuvant combination of the CDK4/6 inhibitor abemaciclib with anastrozole could lead to a novel therapeutic option for patients with hormone receptor (HR)&ndash;positive, HER2-negative early breast cancer.

A small clinical trial demonstrated encouraging clinical activity in triple-negative breast cancer treated with a MEK inhibitor and a taxane.

Hope S. Rugo, MD, professor of Medicine and director of the Breast Oncology Clinical Trials Program at the University of California, San Francisco, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses what sets abemaciclib apart from other CDK 4/6 inhibitors in the field of hormone receptor (HR)-positive breast cancer.

Aromatase inhibitor (AI) therapy may pose a risk of cardiovascular disease to postmenopausal women with early-stage breast cancer, raising the possibility of a long-term complication in an era of growing survivorship when patients are treated with estrogen-targeting drugs for years.

Maura N. Dickler, MD, medical oncologist, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses an ongoing clinical trial of the CDK4/6 inhibitor abemaciclib combined with the PD-L1 inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for patients with hormone receptor (HR)-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer. She also sheds light on abemaciclib&#39;s unique mechanism of action.