Breast Cancer

Clinical studies have transformed how breast cancer is prevented, identified, and treated. Successful clinical trials improve patient outcomes, so trial administrators must ensure participants receive appropriate support at trial enrollment.

A minimally invasive procedure could revolutionize breast surgery; Black women experience the worst birthing outcomes; Kaiser Permanente health workers' concerns over labor disputes persist.

The FDA has granted fast track designation to IDE161 for use in adult patients with advanced or metastatic hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer harboring BRCA1/2 mutations who have progressed after at least 1 hormonal therapy, a CDK4/6 inhibitor, and a poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibitor.

In this interview from our recent Institute for Value-Based Medicine® event, Kristine Slam, MD, FACP, Central Ohio Surgical Associates, discusses the positive impact that Choosing Wisely and enhanced recovery after surgery, or EROS, protocols have had on patients receiving treatment for breast cancer.

The dual primary end points of overall survival and progression-free survival were encouraging when patients with hormone receptor–positive (HR+), HER2-negative (HER2–) breast cancer were treated with datopotamab deruxtecan.

Data from fee-for-service Medicare claims that were linked to the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program were used for this retrospective cohort analysis among women 70 years and older.

Data from 6 states—California, Florida, Louisiana, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania—and 2 metropolitan areas—Atlanta, Georgia, and Detroit, Michigan—collected through the National Institutes of Health–AARP Diet and Health Study were used for the investigation.

Despite seeming to elicit more pathological complete responses (pCRs) in patients with hormone receptor–positive (HR+), HER2-negative triple-negative breast cancer (BC) receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy, diet and exercise did not affect relative dose intensity.

While regional variations were identified in rates of breast reconstruction, complications, and cost for patients with breast cancer, these differences did not seem to be associated with any implicit bias.

New research suggests conventional fractionated and hypofractionated proton postmastectomy radiotherapy (PMRT) yield similar tolerability and complication rates for patients following mastectomy.

Coverage from the July 25, 2023, session of the Institute for Value-Based Medicine®, presented by The American Journal of Managed Care® in partnership with Emory's Winship Cancer Institute.

The task force was motivated by a gap between in breast cancer deaths between Black and White women.

In breast cancer, approval for elacestrant and a new indication for sacituzumab govitecan; approval for pirtobrutinib for mantle cell lymphoma.

Results for this study, involving use of this CDK4/6 inhibitor with endocrine therapy, will be presented at an upcoming scientific meeting and submitted to regulators.

The FDA approved an expanded indication for abemaciclib (Verzenio) in combination with endocrine therapy for the adjuvant treatment of adult patients with hormone receptor (HR)–positive, HER2-negative, node-positive, early breast cancer that is at a high risk of recurrence.

The FDA has approved elacestrant (Orserdu) for the treatment of postmenopausal women or adult men with estrogen receptor–positive, HER2-negative, ESR1-mutated advanced or metastatic breast cancer with disease progression following at least 1 line of endocrine therapy.

The approval came exactly 2 months after results from the landmark DESTINY-Breast04 trial showed that the antibody drug conjugate reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 50% compared with chemotherapy for HER2-low patients with both hormone receptor (HR)–positive and HR-negative disease.

Hope S. Rugo, MD, FASCO, is professor of medicine and the director of the Breast Oncology and Clinical Trials Education program at the University of California San Francisco Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. She discusses her experience with palbociclib and letrozole in advanced breast cancer.

Debra Patt, MD, PhD, MBA, executive vice president of Texas Oncology, discusses how community oncology practices have heightened their outreach efforts to entice patients back in for cancer screenings and the importance of thinking outside the box to overcome staffing shortages in the oncology space.

Officials from Novartis emphasized that the ribociclib-fulvestrant combination is the only one in the CDK4/6 inhibitor class to demonstrate an overall survival benefit when used in a first-line setting among postmenopausal women.

This approval of trastuzumab deruxtecan (Enhertu) follows the March release of data from the DESTINY-Breast03 trial on the anti-HER2 monoclonal antibody, also a HER2-directed antibody-drug conjugate, which indicated superior outcomes vs trastuzumab emtansine.

The intent of metastatic disease treatment is palliative, not curative, so we try to prolong life and provide quality of life as much as we can, said Hatem Soliman, MD, medical director of the Clinical Trials Office, Moffitt Cancer Center.

To achieve health equity, experts from CVS Health discuss why we must invest in programs that improve access to health care for historically marginalized communities, address social determinants, boost health education, increase representation in all levels of health care delivery, widen access to clinical trial research, and more.