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Three breast cancer abstracts to watch at ASCO Annual Meeting

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Adam Brufsky

Adam Brufsky, MD, PhD, codirector of the Comprehensive Breast Cancer Center at University of Pittsburgh and a HemOnc Today Editorial Board Member, identified three breast cancer abstracts to watch at ASCO Annual Meeting.

1. TAILORx trial (Abstract LBA1) — This randomized phase 3 trial included more than 10,000 women with hormone receptor-positive, HER-2-negative, axillary node-negative breast cancer.

The 21-gene expression assay (Oncotype DX, Genomic Health) has demonstrated clinical utility for predicting recurrence risk among patients whose scores are low (0 to 10) and for predicting chemotherapy benefit for patients whose scores are high (26 or higher).

The plenary session at ASCO will feature an analysis from the randomized phase 3 TAILORx trial that includes women with intermediate Oncotype DX scores of 11 to 25.

Researchers randomly assigned these women to hormone therapy alone, or hormone therapy with chemotherapy.

“This will be exciting to see,” Brufsky told HemOnc Today. “We are all awaiting results of this trial, as it is the largest randomized trial of its kind. I think that it has the chance to change practice dramatically, at least in the setting of early-stage breast cancer.”

2. PERSEPHONE trial (Abstract 506) — This randomized phase 3 trial, conducted in England, included 4,000 patients with HER-2-positive early-stage breast cancer.

The noninferiority trial compared 6 months of adjuvant trastuzumab (Herceptin, Genentech) with 12 months of therapy.

Results showed 6 months of treatment was noninferior to 12 months of treatment.

“This finding is opposite from the findings of other trials,” Brufsky told HemOnc Today. “These data are very interesting and I think that we will all be dissecting this trial because, if it means that we can give 6 months [instead of] 12 months of trastuzumab, this will be a major practice change.”

3. Sacituzumab govitecan for refractory metastatic breast cancer (Abstract 1004) — A phase 1/phase II basket trial evaluated sacituzumab govitecan (IMMU-132, Immunomedics), a novel antibody-drug conjugate, for patients with advanced cancers.

This abstract will focus on an analysis of 54 women (median age, 54 years; range, 33-79) with hormone receptor-positive, HER-2-negative metastatic breast cancer who underwent prior hormonal therapy. All patients underwent at least two prior lines of therapy for metastatic disease.

Patients received sacituzumab govitecan 10 mg/kg on days 1 and 8 of 21-day cycles. Treatment continued until unacceptable toxicity or disease progression.

Results showed single-agent treatment led to objective responses in this heavily pretreated population. The treatment also appeared well tolerated.

“Although it is a small trial, there does appear to be a lot of activity, very similar to the activity that was seen [with this agent for patients with] triple-negative breast cancer,” Brufsky told HemOnc Today. “This is something that may be an additional benefit for women with estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer, and I am sure that it will be followed up with a randomized clinical trial.” – by Jennifer Southall