SCRI Breast Cancer Experts Recap SABCS

The San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS) took place from December 5-9, and brought together experts from across the world to discuss important updates in breast cancer research. Read below to learn more about several exciting presentations, summarized by SCRI breast cancer experts!

The KATHERINE study enrolled patients with HER2+ breast cancer who had chemotherapy before surgery and still had some tumor left behind at the time of surgery. These patients received either standard trastuzumab or a newer treatment, T-DM1. Instead of being just an antibody, T-DM1 is an antibody with a chemotherapy payload attached to the molecule.?After an 8.4 year follow up, the results showed that patients receiving T-DM1 lived significantly longer than those receiving trastuzumab. This also translates to ~14% fewer people having their cancer return.

The NATALEE study evaluated standard hormonal therapy alone versus hormonal therapy with ribociclib, a CDK4/6 inhibitor, added for 3 years for patients with intermediate/high risk ER+ breast cancer.?Initial data showed that the ribociclib combination led to more people being cured (iDFS) benefit). After longer follow up now at 3 years, the iDFS benefit continues with 3.7% less patients relapsing who received ribociclib with their endocrine therapy. Importantly, this benefit extended to even patients who did have lymph nodes involved with their cancer. These data are reassuring, confirming the efficacy of ribociclib + hormonal therapy in this patient population. Hopefully the benefit will grow even more with longer follow up. SCRI expert, Denise Yardley, MD, was Principal Investigator on this study.

Exciting data with immunotherapy in ER+/HER2- breast cancer from the KEYNOTE 756 trial were presented by SCRI expert, Joyce O'Shaughnessy , MD, at the meeting as well. The addition of pembrolizumab, a drug that targets the immune system, to standard neoadjuvant chemotherapy improved the chances of a pathological complete response (having no tumor left at the time of surgery) in patients treated with the combination compared to chemotherapy alone. Data from a longer follow up from this trial will determine if this translates to more cures in the long term.

In the Spotlight Session, “Novel Nuclear Receptor Targeting Therapies,” SCRI expert, Erika Hamilton, MD , MD, presented data on vepdegestrant, a novel hormonal drug that degrades the estrogen receptor (ER) responsible for hormonally driven breast cancers. In this study, combining vepdegestrant with palbociclib, an active breast cancer therapeutic, led to tumor shrinkage and delayed the need for new therapy in most patients with ER+ metastatic breast cancer (MBC) who had received extensive prior treatments, even including palbociclib. The side effect profile was very reassuring. These encouraging results led to a phase 3 trial to evaluating this combination therapy in patients with newly diagnosed ER+/HER2- MBC.

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