According to INCA (National Cancer Institute), in Brazil, breast cancer is the most common type of cancer after non-melanoma skin cancer. The disease is also the most common among women worldwide.
With that in mind, researchers led by Spanish-American cancer research company MEDSIR on Friday (2) released a study that suggests a third of patients can avoid using chemotherapy to successfully treat their disease.
The study was made public on the first day of the ASCO (American Society of Clinical Oncology) annual meeting. The event, which is the largest gathering in the industry with around 40,000 professionals, will run until Tuesday (6).
Breast Cancer Research
The PHERGain phase 2 clinical trial enrolled 356 patients aged 18 years and older between June 2017 and April 2019 with resectable HER2+ early stage 2-3 breast cancer. This aggressive subtype has traditionally required chemotherapy as the standard of care.
Divided into groups A and B, the patients received various stimuli in the process of treating the disease: group A received a combination of chemotherapy in combination with drugs. trastuzumab This pertuzumabwhile group B treatment was adaptive, designed to bypass chemotherapy based on individual progress.
After six cycles of treatment, patients in group A were operated on, and patients in group B after eight cycles.
Results
The study, led by physicians Javier Cortés, Antonio Llombard-Cussac and José Pérez, aimed to evaluate the percentage of pCR in the breast and armpit during surgery in those who responded well to a PET scan and recurrence-free survival. in three years.
In 2021, The Lancet reported that 37.9% of patients group B, which responded to treatment, achieved a complete pathological response. On Friday, at a conference in Chicago, the second criterion was revealed – survival.
Group B, as emphasized by Cortes during the presentation, included both patients who eventually received chemotherapy and those who managed to continue without it.
Data show that 95.4% of patients (255) in this group were relapse-free after three years, and among those who avoided chemotherapy over the course of the study, by almost 30%, that percentage rose to nearly 99%.
Typical treatment combines chemotherapy, trastuzumab, and pertuzumab. But promising results with only the last two drugs now call into question the mandatory use of chemotherapy, a more toxic method with more severe side effects.
Thus, the results are encouraging, demonstrating that in some patients with early or less advanced tumors, it is possible and safe to avoid chemotherapy without compromising outcome.
“I would like to thank the patients and their families, the investigators and the entire team for their trust and the opportunity to conduct this independent study,” concluded Cortes, professor at the European University of Madrid and director of the International Center for Breast Cancer. Barcelona and Madrid.
Source: Ndmais