ASCO Annual Meeting: Breast Cancer

The PARP inhibitor olaparib increases progression-free survival and improves quality of life in BRCA-mutated HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer patients.

Abemaciclib plus fulvestrant was linked with improved response and PFS in patients with endocrine-resistant, HR-positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer.

Palbociclib alone and in combination with endocrine therapy offers clinical benefit among women with HR-positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer.

Breast cancer survivors, including those with estrogen receptor–positive tumors, can safely become pregnant, according to a new study.

Among breast cancer survivors, black women are far less likely to receive BRCA testing and preventive surgery than white or Hispanic women.

OPT-822/821 vaccination did not show any improvement in progression-free survival as maintenance therapy compared with placebo for metastatic breast cancer. But in those patients who had an immune response, the vaccine did appear to show activity.

Heavily pretreated women with metastatic breast cancer had significant improvements in progression-free survival and overall response rate when treated with the combination of utidelone plus capecitabine compared with capecitabine alone.

Postmenopausal women with early breast cancer benefit from extending AI therapy with letrozole from 5 to 10 years, and show no worsening of quality of life.

Directly engaging and recruiting patients online using social media will allow broader participation in cancer genomics research and hasten clinical advances.

The investigational biosimilar MYL-1401O has comparable efficacy and safety to the FDA-approved trastuzumab in metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer.

The prostate cancer drug enzalutamide has shown activity in women with advanced triple-negative breast cancer whose tumors express the androgen receptor.

Early trial results suggest that a copper-depleting agent may create an inhospitable environment for tumor progression in patients with breast cancer.

Performing a cavity shave margin in breast cancer patients undergoing partial mastectomy can reduce re-excision and positive margin rates after surgery.

Treatment of postmenopausal DCIS patients with the aromatase inhibitor anastrozole resulted in higher breast cancer–free survival rates compared with treatment with tamoxifen.

The addition of palbociclib to fulvestrant delayed disease progression in women with HR-positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer.

As part of our coverage of the 2014 ASCO Annual Meeting, we discuss treatment strategies for breast cancer patients who harbor either the BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation.

After surgery, adjuvant therapy with trastuzumab alone works just as well as trastuzumab combined with lapatinib for women with early-stage HER2-positive breast cancer.

Zoledronic acid given every 12 weeks was just as efficacious as the drug administered at the standard dosing schedule of every 4 weeks for breast cancer patients with bone metastases.

Metastatic breast cancer patients with insulin resistance have a significantly worse prognosis, according to the results of a study presented at the 2014 ASCO Annual Meeting.

The combined analysis of two phase III clinical trials shows that exemestane, an aromatase inhibitor, may better prevent breast cancer recurrence in women with early-stage hormone receptor–positive breast cancer, as compared with tamoxifen.

A follow-up analysis of gene expression signatures from the CALGB 40601 trial shows that certain HER2-positive early-stage breast cancer patients may not benefit from more aggressive chemotherapy treatments as part of a neoadjuvant regimen, and that patients with HER2-enriched tumors responded best to dual anti-HER2 treatment.

An analysis of early-stage breast cancer shows that obesity raises the risk of dying from breast cancer for pre-menopausal women diagnosed with ER-positive disease.

Ahead of the ASCO 2013 meeting we discuss neoadjuvant therapy options and clinical trials in breast cancer, as well as the opportunities for targeted therapies in post-neoadjuvant trials.

While overall mastectomy rates have dropped in recent years, more and more women with cancer in one breast are opting to have both breasts removed. The trend has left many researchers questioning whether contralateral prophylactic mastectomy (CPM) is getting overused, or if it simply reflects a better recognition by both patients and physicians of who is likely to develop breast cancer.

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) continues to carry a poor prognosis. However, novel prognostic and potentially predictive biomarkers may soon improve that bleak outlook, according to a series of studies presented on Saturday at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting in Chicago.

Live coverage of the ASCO session on PARP inhibitors and DNA repair, with speakers Michael Kastan, Judy Garber, and Elisabeth Plummer.

David Mankoff speaks on new developments in imaging and recommends ASCO sessions on imaging clinical trials.