BREAST CANCER

The combination of palbociclib and letrozole more than doubled PFS and showed a non–statistically significant 4.2-month improvement in OS for patients with ER-positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer.

Sunil Verma, MD, MSEd, FRCPC, University of Toronto, Breast Medical Oncology, Sunnybrook Odette Cancer Centre, discusses advances in the treatment of patients with metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer.

The US Supreme Court’s landmark decision last June, mandating that an individual’s genes cannot be patented, transformed the genetic testing landscape and opened the marketplace to a host of new and complicated testing options.

Judy C. Boughey, MD, associate professor of surgery, director, Breast Surgical Oncology Training Program, Mayo Clinic, discusses breast conservation in patients with multiple ipsilateral tumors.

Over the past few decades, the optimal margin width for minimizing recurrence after breast-conserving surgery (BCS; lumpectomy) has been a topic of much debate.

Julia White, MD, professor, director, Breast Radiation Oncology, vice chair, Clinical Research, The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses the BR-002 trial, which will evaluate the rate of complete tumor ablation of breast cancers that are less than or equal to 2 centimeters.

Debu Tripathy, MD, co-leader, Women's Cancer Program, University of Southern California Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses augmenting the benefit of hormonal therapy in breast cancer.

The most promising novel therapeutics in development for patients with breast cancer focus primarily on targeting activating mutations in combinations that are based on findings from next-generation sequencing.

Hyman B. Muss, MD, professor of oncology, University of North Carolina, director, Geriatric Oncology, Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses maximizing cardiac function in patients with breast cancer.

Screening for prostate-specific antigen (PSA) significantly cuts the death rate from prostate cancer, but at the same time, America’s medical community should work harder to avoid the screen’s potential pitfalls.

Melvin J. Silverstein, MD, FACS, director, Breast Program Hoag Memorial Hospital, professor of surgery, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, discusses treatment options for ductal carcinoma in situ

The Journal of Targeted Therapies in Cancer discussed various issues regarding new and existing therapies in breast cancer with Richard Finn, MD.

Treatments for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) have made significantly less progress in comparison with other subtypes.

Henry M. Kuerer, MD, PhD, FACS, professor of surgery, Department of Surgical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses the overtreatment of DCIS.

Grant W. Carlson, MD, professor of surgery, Emory University School of Medicine, chief, Division of Plastic Surgery, Emory University Hospital, discusses treatment considerations for younger patients with breast cancer.

Since its approval in 1998 to treat metastatic disease, trastuzumab has dramatically expanded life expectancy and improved quality of life for women diagnosed with HER2-positive breast cancer.

The large Canadian study that has caused a stir by indicating that mammograms are of no use in women aged 40 to 59 years, and in fact can lead to over-diagnosis of breast cancer, is flawed and misleading.

A wide-ranging analysis of more than 5500 breast cancer tumors that combined genomic and protein expression testing has identified promising targets to explore for treating patients with poor prognoses, with particularly notable findings involving androgen receptor (AR) expression.

Robert McCormack, PhD, head, Technology Innovation, Janssen Diagnostics, LLC, discusses the SWOG S0500 study, which evaluated different treatments in patients with metastatic breast cancer who had elevated circulating tumor cell (CTC) levels.

Eribulin mesylate has demonstrated clinical benefit as a first-line therapy for locally recurrent or metastatic HER2- negative breast cancer, according to results of a phase II, multicenter, single-arm study.

According to a new study, physicians now have a clearer understanding of the optimum age for prophylactic oophorectomy in patients with BRCA mutations who want to reduce their risk of ovarian, fallopian tube, and breast cancer.

Significant developments in research and treatment for HER2-positive breast cancer have emerged over the past year. Those advances include a growing number of studies measuring the effectiveness of dual agents.

Neil M. Iyengar, MD, Fellow, Medical Oncology and Hematology, Breast Medicine Service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses a study presented at the 2013 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium that further validated the link between obesity and breast inflammation in women with breast cancer.

Adam Brufsky, MD, PhD, FACP, professor of medicine, associate division chief, Division of Hematology/Oncology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, discusses the results of the BETH study

Previously revealed efficacy data from the BOLERO-3 study indicated slowed tumor progression in patients with trastuzumab-resistant HER2+ breast cancer, and now everolimus, trastuzumab, and vinorelbine has demonstrated a manageable safety profile.

Neoadjuvant and adjuvant therapies, administered before and after primary anticancer therapy, respectively, have been shown in numerous clinical trials to reduce recurrence and improve survival in patients with breast cancer.

Dawn Hershman, MD, MS, medical oncologist, Columbia University Medical Center, discusses chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy in breast cancer.

Andrew J. Brenner, MD, PhD, assistant professor of medicine, clinical investigator, Cancer Therapy Research Center, The University of Texas Health Science Center, discusses a study that was conducted to try to find the link between obesity and breast cancer.

Delaying resistance to hormone therapy and prolonging PFS in women with hormone receptor-positive, advanced disease have remained elusive goals in breast cancer treatment.

Gunter von Minckwitz, MD, PhD, Chairman, German Breast Group, Professor of Gynecology, University of Frankfurt, Germany, explains the mechanism of palbociclib, a novel oral selective inhibitor of cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) 4 and 6