Background: Female carriers of a BRCA1 or 2 germline mutation face a high lifetime risk to develop breast and ovarian cancer. Risk-reducing surgery, such as prophylactic bilateral mastectomy and ...prophylactic bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy, are proven strategies to prevent breast and ovarian cancer. These procedures are, however, associated with considerable side effects, and the uptake of these highly effective interventions is therefore low in many countries. This highlights the need for alternative and noninvasive strategies for risk reduction in mutation carriers. Summary: While endocrine treatments with tamoxifen and aromatase inhibitors (AI) have been shown to be effective in secondary prevention, their benefit in primary prevention has never been prospectively evaluated. Moreover, their side effect profile makes them inappropriate candidates for chemoprevention in healthy premenopausal women. Recently, denosumab, a well-tolerated osteoprotective drug, has been shown to have an antitumoral effect on RANK+, BRCA1-deficient luminal progenitor cells in vitro, and has been demonstrated to abrogate tumors in BRCA1-deficient mouse models. Key Message: The prospectively randomized, double-blind BRCA-P trial is currently investigating the preventative effect of denosumab in healthy BRCA1 germline mutation carriers.
To evaluate the breast cancer screening efficacy of mammography, ultrasound, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in a high-risk population and in various population subgroups.
In a single-center, ...prospective, nonrandomized comparison study, BRCA mutation carriers and women with a high familial risk (> 20% lifetime risk) for breast cancer were offered screening with mammography, ultrasound, and MRI every 12 months. Diagnostic performance was compared between individual modalities and their combinations. Further comparisons were based on subpopulations dichotomized by screening rounds, mutation status, age, and breast density.
There were 559 women with 1,365 complete imaging rounds included in this study. The sensitivity of MRI (90.0%) was significantly higher (P < .001) than that of mammography (37.5%) and ultrasound (37.5%). Of 40 cancers, 18 (45.0%) were detected by MRI alone. Two cancers were found by mammography alone (a ductal carcinoma in situ DCIS with microinvasion and a DCIS with < 10-mm invasive areas). This did not lead to a significant increase of sensitivity compared with using MRI alone (P = .15). No cancers were detected by ultrasound alone. Similarly, of 14 DCISs, all were detected by MRI, whereas mammography and ultrasound each detected five DCISs (35.7%). Age, mutation status, and breast density had no influence on the sensitivity of MRI and did not affect the superiority of MRI over mammography and ultrasound.
MRI allows early detection of familial breast cancer regardless of patient age, breast density, or risk status. The added value of mammography is limited, and there is no added value of ultrasound in women undergoing MRI for screening.
Gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT) is a known marker for apoptotic balance and cell detoxification. Recently, an association of baseline GGT levels and breast cancer incidence, tumor progression and ...chemotherapy resistance was shown. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the association of pre-therapeutic GGT levels, clinical-pathological parameters and survival in patients with primary metastatic breast cancer (PMBC).
In this multicenter analysis, pre-therapeutic GGT levels and clinical-pathological parameters of 114 patients diagnosed with PMBC between 1996 and 2012 were evaluated. The association between GGT levels and clinical-pathological parameters were analysed. Patients were stratified into four GGT risk-groups (GGT < 18.00 U/L: normal low, 18.00 to 35.99 U/L: normal high, 36.00 to 71.99 U/L: elevated and ≥ 72.00 U/L: highly elevated) and survival analyses were performed.
Patients in the high risk GGT group had a poorer overall survival, when compared to the low risk group with five-year overall survival rates of 39.5% and 53.7% (p = 0.04), respectively. Patients with larger breast tumors had a trend towards higher GGT levels (p = 0.053). Pre-therapeutic GGT levels were not associated with indicators of aggressive tumor biology such as HER2-status, triple negative histology, or poorly differentiated cancers.
Pre-therapeutic GGT serum level might serve as a novel prognostic factor for overall-survival in patients with PMBC.
In postmenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive, early-stage breast cancer, treatment with adjuvant aromatase inhibitors is the standard of care, but it increases risk for osteoporosis and ...fractures. Results from the ABCSG-18 trial showed that use of denosumab as an adjuvant to aromatase inhibitor therapy significantly reduced clinical fractures. Disease-free survival outcomes from ABCSG-18 have not yet been reported.
Postmenopausal patients with early, hormone receptor-positive, non-metastatic adenocarcinoma of the breast, who had completed their initial adjuvant treatment pathway (surgery, radiotherapy, or chemotherapy, or a combination) and were receiving adjuvant aromatase inhibitors, were enrolled at 58 trial centres in Austria and Sweden into this prospective, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 3 trial. With permuted block randomisation (block sizes 2 and 4, stratified by previous aromatase inhibitor use, total lumbar spine bone mineral density score at baseline, and type of centre), patients were assigned (1:1) to receive subcutaneous denosumab (60 mg) or matching placebo every 6 months during aromatase inhibitor therapy. The primary endpoint (previously reported) was the time to first clinical fracture after randomisation. The secondary endpoint reported here is disease-free survival (defined as time from randomisation to first evidence of local or distant metastasis, contralateral breast cancer, secondary carcinoma, or death from any cause) in the intention-to-treat population. This study is registered with EudraCT (number 2005–005275–15) and ClinicalTrials.gov (number NCT00556374), and is ongoing for long-term follow-up.
Between Dec 18, 2006, and July 22, 2013, 3425 eligible patients were enrolled and randomly assigned; 1711 to the denosumab group and 1709 to the placebo group (with five others withdrawing consent). After a median follow-up of 73 months (IQR 58–95), 240 (14·0%) patients in the denosumab and 287 (16·8%) in the placebo group had disease-free survival events. Disease-free survival was significantly improved in the denosumab group versus the placebo group (hazard ratio 0·82, 95% CI 0·69–0·98, Cox p=0·0260; descriptive analysis, without controlling for multiplicity). In the denosumab group, disease-free survival was 89·2% (95% CI 87·6–90·8) at 5 years and 80·6% (78·1–83·1) at 8 years of follow-up, compared with 87·3% (85·7–89·0) at 5 years and 77·5% (74·8–80·2) and 8 years in the placebo group. No independently adjudicated cases of osteonecrosis of the jaw or confirmed atypical femoral fractures were recorded. The total number of adverse events was similar in the denosumab group (1367 including 521 serious adverse events) and the placebo group (1339 515 serious). The most common serious adverse events were osteoarthritis (62 3·6% of 1709 in the denosumab group vs 58 3·4% of 1690 in the placebo group), meniscus injury (23 1·3% vs 24 1·4%), and cataract (16 0·9% vs 28 1·7%). One (<0·1%) treatment-related death (due to pneumonia, septic kidney failure, and cardiac decompensation) occurred in the denosumab group.
Denosumab constitutes an effective and safe adjuvant treatment for patients with postmenopausal hormone receptor-positive early breast cancer receiving aromatase inhibitor therapy.
Amgen.
Aromatase inhibitors are effective as endocrine treatment for patients with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer. According to the hypothesis that overweight patients have higher levels of ...aromatase enzyme availability, we investigated the influence of body mass index (BMI) on the efficacy of adjuvant endocrine therapy in premenopausal patients in a retrospective analysis of the Austrian Breast and Colorectal Cancer Study Group (ABCSG) 12 trial.
ABCSG-12 examined the efficacy of ovarian suppression using goserelin (3.6 mg subcutaneously every 28 days) in combination with anastrozole or tamoxifen with or without zoledronic acid (4 mg intravenously every 6 months) in premenopausal women with endocrine-responsive breast cancer. BMI was calculated using the prospectively collected data on patients' height and weight at study entry. BMI categories have been differentiated according to the WHO definition.
Overweight patients treated with anastrozole had a 60% increase in the risk of disease recurrence (hazard ratio HR, 1.60; 95% CI, 1.06 to 2.41; P = .02) and more than a doubling in the risk of death (HR, 2.14; 95% CI, 1.17 to 3.92; P = .01) compared with normal weight patients treated with anastrozole. In the overweight group, patients treated with anastrozole had a nearly 50% increase in the risk of disease recurrence (HR, 1.49; 95% CI, 0.93 to 2.38; P = .08) and a three-fold increase in the risk of death (HR, 3.03; 95% CI, 1.35 to 6.82; P = .004) compared with patients treated with tamoxifen.
BMI significantly impacts on the efficacy of anastrozole plus goserelin in premenopausal patients with breast cancer, probably through influencing aromatase availability and/or ovarian suppression by goserelin.
This Phase I study evaluated the safety, tolerability and efficacy of olaparib, a potent oral poly(ADPribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor, in combination with paclitaxel in patients with metastatic ...triple-negative breast cancer (mTNBC).
Eligible patients who had received ≤1 prior cytotoxic regimen for mTNBC were treated with olaparib 200 mg bid continuously plus weekly paclitaxel 90 mg/m2 for three weeks per four-week cycle. Dose modifications in a large proportion of patients due to neutropenia resulted in enrollment of a second cohort of patients who, if they experienced grade ≥2 neutropenia in cycle 1, received granulocyte-colony stimulating factor, which was continued prophylactically in subsequent cycles. All patients had measurable disease; tumor responses were evaluated according to RECIST (version 1.0).
Nineteen patients (cohort 1, n = 9; cohort 2, n = 10) received treatment; 15 had received prior taxane chemotherapy. The most frequent adverse events were diarrhea (n = 12, 63%), nausea (n = 11, 58%) and neutropenia (n = 11, 58%). Seven neutropenia events were reported in cohort 1 (four grade ≥3) and four in cohort 2 (two grade ≥3, including one event of febrile neutropenia). The median (range) dose intensity of paclitaxel was 57% (26 to 100%) in cohort 1 and 73% (29 to 100%) in cohort 2. Seven patients (37%) had a confirmed partial response; one patient remains on olaparib monotherapy without progression.
The combination of olaparib and weekly paclitaxel was complicated by a significant clinical interaction, with higher-than-expected rates of neutropenia despite secondary prophylaxis. Given the encouraging response rate, alternative scheduling and dosing strategies should be considered (funded by AstraZeneca; ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT00707707).
According to current guidelines, molecular tests predicting the outcome of breast cancer patients can be used to assist in making treatment decisions after consideration of conventional markers. We ...developed and validated a gene expression signature predicting the likelihood of distant recurrence in patients with estrogen receptor (ER)-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer treated with adjuvant endocrine therapy.
RNA levels assessed by quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tumor tissue were used to calculate a risk score (Endopredict, EP) consisting of eight cancer-related and three reference genes. EP was combined with nodal status and tumor size into a comprehensive risk score, EPclin. Both prespecified risk scores including cutoff values to determine a risk group for each patient (low and high) were validated independently in patients from two large randomized phase III trials Austrian Breast and Colorectal Cancer Study Group (ABCSG)-6: n = 378, ABCSG-8: n = 1,324.
In both validation cohorts, continuous EP was an independent predictor of distant recurrence in multivariate analysis (ABCSG-6: P = 0.010, ABCSG-8: P < 0.001). Combining Adjuvant!Online, quantitative ER, Ki67, and treatment with EP yielded a prognostic power significantly superior to the clinicopathologic factors alone c-indices: 0.764 vs. 0.750, P = 0.024 (ABCSG-6) and 0.726 vs. 0.701, P = 0.003 (ABCSG-8). EPclin had c-indices of 0.788 and 0.732 and resulted in 10-year distant recurrence rates of 4% and 4% in EPclin low-risk and 28% and 22% in EPclin high-risk patients in ABCSG-6 (P < 0.001) and ABCSG-8 (P < 0.001), respectively.
The multigene EP risk score provided additional prognostic information to the risk of distant recurrence of breast cancer patients, independent from clinicopathologic parameters. The EPclin score outperformed all conventional clinicopathologic risk factors.
For postmenopausal women with hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer, the most effective duration for adjuvant therapy with an aromatase inhibitor remains unclear.
In this prospective, phase 3 ...trial, we randomly assigned postmenopausal women with hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer who had received 5 years of adjuvant endocrine therapy to receive the aromatase inhibitor anastrozole for an additional 2 years (2-year group, receiving a total of 7 years) or an additional 5 years (5-year group, receiving a total of 10 years). The primary end point was disease-free survival. The primary analysis included all the patients who were still participating in the trial and who had no recurrence 2 years after randomization (i.e., when treatment in the 2-year group had ended). Secondary end points were overall survival, contralateral breast cancer, second primary cancer, and clinical bone fracture.
Among the 3484 women who were enrolled in the trial, 3208 remained in the trial without disease progression after the first 2 years of extended anastrozole treatment following randomization. Among these women, disease progression or death occurred in 335 women in each treatment group in the primary-analysis set at 8 years (hazard ratio, 0.99; 95% confidence interval CI, 0.85 to 1.15; P = 0.90). No between-group differences occurred in most secondary end points, and subgroup analyses did not indicate differences in any particular subgroup. The risk of clinical bone fracture was higher in the 5-year group than in the 2-year group (hazard ratio, 1.35; 95% CI, 1.00 to 1.84).
In postmenopausal women with hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer who had received 5 years of adjuvant endocrine therapy, extending hormone therapy by 5 years provided no benefit over a 2-year extension but was associated with a greater risk of bone fracture. (Funded by AstraZeneca and the Austrian Breast and Colorectal Cancer Study Group; ABCSG-16/SALSA ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00295620.).
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