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Institute
Update breast cancer 2020 part 5: moving therapies from advanced to early breast cancer patients
(2021)
Background: Each year the interdisciplinary Arbeitsgemeinschaft Gynäkologische Onkologie (AGO), German Gynecological Oncology Group Breast Committee on Diagnosis and Treatment of Breast Cancer provides updated state-of-the-art recommendations for early and metastatic breast cancer. Summary: The updated evidence-based treatment recommendation for early and metastatic breast cancer has been released in March 2023. Key Messages: This paper concisely captures the updated recommendations for early breast cancer chapter by chapter.
The St. Gallen (SG) International Breast Cancer Conference is held every two years, previously in St. Gallen and now in Vienna. This year (2023) marks the eighteenth edition of this conference, which focuses on the treatment of patients with early-stage breast carcinoma. A panel discussion will be held at the end of this four-day event, during which a panel of experts will give their opinions on current controversial issues relating to the treatment of early-stage breast cancer patients. To this end, questions are generally formulated in such a way that clinically realistic cases are presented – often including poignant hypothetical modifications. This review reports on the outcome of these discussions and summarises the data associated with individual questions raised.
Clinical evidence is interpreted based on clinical studies and personal experience which can lead to different interpretations of data. This makes the opinions issued by panels of experts such as the Advanced Breast Cancer Panel which convened in November 2023 for the seventh time (ABC7) particularly important. At the conference, current issues around advanced breast cancer were evaluated by an international team of experts.
In 2023 the data on CDK4/6 inhibitors was so extensive that the answers to questions about the sequencing of therapy and the potential use of chemotherapy as an alternative therapy were relatively clear. Moreover, data on antibody drug conjugates which provides a good overview of their uses is available for all molecular subtypes.
Some therapeutic settings, including patients with brain metastases or leptomeningeal disease, older patients, locally advanced breast cancer and visceral crises, continue to be particularly important and were discussed in structured sessions. The scientific context of some of the topics discussed at ABC7 is presented and assessed here.
Background
The optimal adjuvant endocrine treatment in premenopausal patients with hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative (HRpos/HER2neg) early breast cancer (eBC) remains debated, particularly the choice between aromatase inhibitors plus ovarian function suppression (AI + OFS) or tamoxifen (TAM) with or without additional OFS. This study assessed the use of adjuvant endocrine therapies for premenopausal patients with intermediate/high-risk HRpos/HER2neg eBC.
Methods
CLEAR-B (AGO-B-059; NCT05870813) was a retrospective study analyzing data, collected from January 2016 to June 2019 and from January 2022 to December 2023 during the certification process of breast centers in Germany. Premenopausal patients with HRpos/HER2neg intermediate/high-risk eBC were eligible. Patient and disease characteristics, in addition to recommended and received adjuvant treatments, were evaluated.
Results
The number of registered patients was 3137, of whom 2789 had complete information on endocrine treatments (1717 for 2016–2019 and 1072 for 2022–2023). In 2016–2019, 8.4 % of the patients were recommended to be treated with AI + OFS, whereas in 2022–2023, the proportion of patients with a treatment recommendation for AI + OFS rose to 42.1 %. In 2016–2019, TAM monotherapy was most frequently recommended (80.8 %). Conversely, TAM + OFS was not commonly recommended (9.3 % in 2016–2019 and 16.5 % in 2022–2023). While no clear association between tumor stage and chosen endocrine therapy was found in 2016–2019, most patients with ≥stage IIA were recommended to be treated with AI + OFS in 2022–2023.
Conclusion
This analysis shows that treatment recommendation for AI + OFS in premenopausal patients with HRpos/HER2neg eBC increased relevantly in the past years, reflecting latest guideline recommendations.
