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VIDEO: Trial demonstrates potential to move away from toxic chemotherapies for breast cancer
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NEW ORLEANS — Angela DeMichele, MD, MSCE, professor of medicine and epidemiology at Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania, presented results of the I-SPY 2 trial at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting.
Results showed neoadjuvant treatment with ado-trastuzumab emtansine (Kadcyla, Genentech) and pertuzumab (Perjeta, Genentech) appeared more beneficial than standard paclitaxel plus trastuzumab (Herceptin, Genentech) among women with HER-2–positive invasive breast cancer.
The experimental combination was associated with a higher estimated pathological complete response rate (52% vs. 22%), and this benefit persisted regardless of hormone receptor status. Patients assigned ado-trastuzumab emtansine and pertuzumab demonstrated lower rates of hypertension, neuropathy and alopecia.
“We see this as a very exciting opportunity to get away from using toxic standard chemotherapies and use more targeted therapies, which we can now build upon with other drugs that can supplement them,” DeMichele told HemOnc Today. “One of the directions that we’ll be going in is to add immunotherapy to ado-trastuzumab emtansine.”
I-SPY 2 — a phase 2, adaptively-randomized trial — was established to identify specific drugs or combinations that could be advanced to phase 3.
“The I-SPY2 platform is a very effective way for us to screen new drugs to see which will be effective and which won’t, and be able to get those drugs to patients faster,” DeMichele said.