04 Mar Patients May Benefit From New Combination Therapy For HER2-Negative Metastatic Breast Cancer
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Massimo Cristofanilli
Massimo Cristofanilli, MD, FACP
Professor of Medicine
Associate Director of Translational Research and Precision Medicine
Department of Medicine-Hematology and Oncology
Robert H Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center
Feinberg School of Medicine
Chicago, IL 60611
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Cristofanilli: The majority of breast cancer are estrogen-receptor positive and therefore candidate for treatment with endocrine therapy in the adjuvant and advanced settings. The most significant issue in the management of estrogen-receptor positive metastatic breast cancer is the development of drug resistance. Very few effective options are available for patients that demonstrate progression of disease while on standard endocrine therapy, particularly in premenopausal women and/or women that have even progressed on chemotherapy. The study demonstrated that the combination of fulvestrant with palbociclib, a novel inhibitor of CDK4/6 kinases, significantly improve response to treatment and delays disease progression with minimal toxicity.
MedicalResearch.com: What should clinicians and patients take away from your report?
Dr. Cristofanilli: The combination fulvestrant/palbociclib is an FDA-approved, effective and safe option for patients that have failed standard endocrine therapy, including premenopausal women. Patients that have already been exposed to chemotherapy in the metastatic setting may also benefit from these treatment. This should become a new standard of care.
MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?
Dr. Cristofanilli: The study demonstrate that patients progressing after standard endocrine therapy derive little benefit from single agent endocrine therapy. We should continue to investigate biomarkers of resistance to better tailor treatments in advanced setting.
MedicalResearch.com: Is there anything else you would like to add?
Dr. Cristofanilli The result of this study are practice change and this combination should become a new standard of care.
MedicalResearch.com: Thank you for your contribution to the MedicalResearch.com community.
Citation:
Fulvestrant plus palbociclib versus fulvestrant plus placebo for treatment of hormone-receptor-positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer that progressed on previous endocrine therapy (PALOMA-3): final analysis of the multicentre, double-blind, phase 3 randomised controlled trial
Prof Massimo Cristofanilli, MD Nicholas C Turner, MD, Prof Igor Bondarenko, MD, Jungsil Ro, MD, Seock-Ah Im, MD, Norikazu Masuda, MD, Marco Colleoni, MD,Angela DeMichele, MD, Sherene Loi, MD, Sunil Verma, MD, Hiroji Iwata,
DOI:
MD, Prof Nadia Harbeck, MD, Ke Zhang, PhD, Kathy Puyana Theall, MD, Yuqiu Jiang, PhD, Cynthia Huang Bartlett, MD,Maria Koehler, MD,Prof Dennis Slamon, MD
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Massimo Cristofanilli, MD, FACP (2016). Patients May Benefit From New Combination Therapy For HER2-Negative Metastatic Breast Cancer
Last Updated on March 4, 2016 by Marie Benz MD FAAD