SABCS 2014

Prof von Minckwitz (German Breast Group, Neu-Isenburg, Germany) talks to ecancertv at the SABCS 2014 symposium about some negative data out of the phase III ICE trial. In elderly breast cancer patients with moderate- to high-risk early-stage disease for whom standard chemotherapy is too toxic, the chemotherapy capecitabine, which causes fewer side effects than the standard chemotherapy agents, did not improve outcomes when tested as monotherapy. What could this mean for the clinic?

Dr Sikov (Women and Infants Hospital, Providence, USA) talks to ecancer at SABCS 2014. Among women with triple-negative breast cancer, the benefit of adding bevacizumab to standard presurgery chemotherapy was greater for those whose cancers were classified as basal-like by gene expression assay compared with those whose cancers were nonbasal-like. In contrast, the benefit of adding carboplatin was equivalent across subtypes. The team found that adding bevacizumab to standard neoadjuvant chemotherapy increased pathologic complete response rates for women with basal-like cancers— it increased the proportion of women who had no residual cancer detected at surgery—but decreased pathologic complete response rates for women with nonbasal-like cancers.

Prof Osborne (Prof Kent Osborne - Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA) talks to ecancertv at SABCS 2014 about the highlights as he sees them coming out from the conference. Specifically, he gives comment on Prof Francis' study on ovarian suppression with tamoxifen which was shown to reduce recurrence for some women with premenopausal breast cancer. Click here to see Prof Francis' interview, or here for the press conference. Read the news story here. Osborne also highlights the importance of research looking at oestrogen receptor mutations.

Prof Livi (Careggi Hospital, Florence, Italy) talks to ecancertv at SABCS 2014 about his work looking at new techniques in intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) to improve dose conformity and reduce tissue damage in breast cancer.

Prof Osborne (Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA) provides ecancertv with his expert opinion on data presented at SABCS 2014 by Prof Robertson about the results of a phase II trial which compared overall survival with fulvestrant versus anastrozole as first-line treatment for patients with advanced hormone receptor-positive breast cancer.

Prof Osborne (Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA) provides his expert opinion to ecancertv on data presented by Prof Hurvitz at SABCS 2014 about the effects of daily everolimus plus weekly trastuzumab and paclitaxel as first-line therapy in women with HER2 advanced breast cancer.

Prof Osborne (Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA) provides ecancertv with his expert opinion on data presented at SABCS 2014 by Prof Rakovitch about the use of a multigene test called Oncotype DX DCIS Score (DCIS Score) as a predictor of risk of disease recurrence for patients with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS).

Prof Osborne (Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA) provides his expert opinion to ecancertv on data presented at SABCS 2014 by Prof Chlebowski regarding results from the Women’s Intervention Nutrition Study (WINS) which looked at nutrition and breast cancer.

Prof Cuzick (Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, London, UK) talks to ecancertv at SABCS 2014 about the results of the IBIS-I trial which looked at the long-term risks and benefits of taking tamoxifen to prevent breast cancer in women at high risk for developing the disease.

Prof Chlebowski (Harbor-UCLA Medical Centre, Torrance, USA) talks to ecancertv at SABCS 2014 about the results of the Women’s Intervention Nutrition Study (WINS) which looked at nutrition and breast cancer.

Prof Robertson (Royal Derby Hospital, Derby, UK) talks to ecancertv at SABCS 2014 about the results of the phase II FIRST trial which compared overall survival with fulvestrant versus anastrozole as first-line treatment for patients with advanced hormone receptor-positive breast cancer.

Dr Francis (Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne, Australia) talks to ecancer at the 2014 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS). Among premenopausal women with early-stage, hormone receptor-positive breast cancer, adding ovarian suppression to tamoxifen reduced breast cancer recurrence for those who had previously received chemotherapy and remained premenopausal, according to data from the randomised, phase III suppression of ovarian function trial (SOFT).

Prof Hurvitz ( University of California, Los Angeles, USA) talks to ecancertv at SABCS 2014 about the results of a phase III trial which looked at the effects of daily everolimus plus weekly trastuzumab and paclitaxel as first-line therapy in women with HER2 advanced breast cancer.

Prof Rakovitch (Sunnybrook Research Institute, Toronto, Canada) talks to ecancertv at SABCS 2014 about the use of a multigene test called Oncotype DX DCIS Score (DCIS Score) which seeks to predict of risk of disease recurrence for patients with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS)

Dr Muneer Ahmed (Guys Hospital, London, UK) speaks to ecancertv at SABCS 2014 about magnetic nanotechnology for the localisation of non-palpable breast cancers and concurrent sentinel node biopsy. This noninvasive new technique has benefits when compared to previous detection methods such as wire biopsies and wire placement, both of which may be distressing to the patient. Magnetic nanotechnology may be used in the future for lesion localisation.

Dr Weigert (Cancer Center of Central Connecticut, New Britain, USA) talks to ecancertv at SABCS 2014 about her research which found that the number of breast cancers detected in women with dense breasts was increased when those women who had a normal mammogram underwent an additional breast ultrasound screening.

Dr Nanda (University of Chicago Medicine, Chicago, USA) talks to ecancertv at SABCS 2014 about the results of a phase Ib clinical trial which sought to evaluate the efficacy and tolerability of pembrolizumab in patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer. The drug was shown to be well tolerated and yielded durable responses.

Dr Cardoso (Champalimaud Cancer Center, Lisbon, Portugal) talks to ecancertv at SABCS 2014 about her work looking at male breast cancer cases which showed that there was a more significant improvement in overall survival for male breast cancer patients over the duration of the study that was seen in female breast cancer.

Dr Perez (Mayo Clinic, Rochester, USA) talks to ecancertv at SABCS 2014 about her research which found that women with HER2-positive breast cancer who had high levels of immune cells in their tumours had a decreased risk of cancer recurrence after treatment with chemotherapy alone compared with their counterparts who had low levels of tumour-infiltrating immune cells.

Dr Twelves (St James's Hospital, Leeds, UK) speaks to ecancertv at SABCS 2014 about the results of a phase II study combining eribulin, a new mitotic inhibitor, with capecitabine in the treatment of metastatic breast cancer. Results suggest that this therapy is effective in women with metastatic breast cancer, with a safety and tolerability profile consistent with previous data.

Dr Arteaga (Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Nashville, USA) talks to ecancertv at SABCS 2014 about negative data out of the phase III ICE trial. In elderly breast cancer patients with moderate- to high-risk early-stage disease for whom standard chemotherapy is too toxic, the chemotherapy capecitabine, which causes fewer side effects than the standard chemotherapy agents, did not improve outcomes when tested as monotherapy.

Dr Arteaga (Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Nashville, USA) speaks to ecancertv at SABCS 2014 about the results of the International Breast Cancer Intervention Study-I (IBIS-1) trial. The trial found that tamoxifen significantly decreased the incidence of all breast cancers. Dr Arteaga discusses the data surrounding this conclusion, and suggests that one challenge may be overcoming the public perception of tamoxifen "being more toxic than beneficial."

At SABCS 2014, Dr Arteaga (Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Nashville, USA) gives ecancertv his own perspective on Dr William Sikov's findings on genetic subtypes and their effects on breast cancer treatments. Dr Sikov found that among women with triple-negative breast cancer, the benefit of adding bevacizumab to standard presurgery chemotherapy was greater for those whose cancers were classified as "basal-like" compared with those whose cancers were "nonbasal-like."

Dr Arteaga (Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Nashville, USA) offers commentary on some new research at SABCS 2014 for ecancertv. Here, he discusses Dr Prudence Francis's presentation on the combination of ovarian suppression and tamoxifen to reduce recurrence for women with premenopausal breast cancer. He notes that this study took particular note of women who had regained ovarian function after chemotherapy, which is useful information for young patients.