A proven treatment for early-stage breast cancer has been shown to reduce the risk of recurrence by 25%, according to the results of a large clinical trial published Friday, bringing hope to many patients.
These preliminary results were announced at the largest annual conference of cancer specialists, hosted by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago.
“This is a very important clinical trial that will change the practice” of doctors, said Rita Nanda, an oncologist at the University of Chicago, who was not involved in this work.
This treatment, ribociclib, is being developed by Novartis against the most common type of breast cancer (called HR+/HR2-). It is already used (in combination with hormone therapy) for patients with advanced-stage, metastatic cancer.
An influence on the growth of cancer cells.
The goal of this new study was to test this drug for early stage (1 to 3) cancers.
Management of this disease usually involves surgery and radiation therapy, possibly chemotherapy, and then taking years of hormone therapy.
Despite this, “a third of patients with stage 2 breast cancer … will have a recurrence,” Dennis Slamon, an oncologist at UCLA University, told a news conference in presenting the results.
“And these recurrences can occur up to two to three decades after diagnosis.”
More than 5,000 people participated in the clinical trial, half of whom took ribociclib and hormone therapy, and half of whom took hormone therapy alone. According to preliminary results, the risk of recurrence was reduced by 25% with treatment.
Ribociclib works by targeting proteins (CDK4 and CDK6) that affect the growth of cancer cells. Two other CDK inhibitor therapies, palbociclib and abemaciclib, are also approved for metastatic breast cancer.
Two million breast cancers diagnosed each year
Abemaciclib was also recently approved in the United States for early-stage disease, but only for women at high risk of recurrence whose lymph nodes are also affected.
Ribociclib could represent an option for women whose lymph nodes are not affected, Rita Nanda stressed.
“There will probably be a lot of discussion about the level of benefit to patients, the type of side effects, and the patients where there is real benefit from using this type of medication for prevention,” he said during the interview. press conference Jean-Yves Pierga, head of the department of medical oncology at the Institut Curie.
Every year more than two million breast cancers are diagnosed worldwide, and the disease causes more than 600,000 deaths a year. Most diagnoses are made at an early stage.
Source: BFM TV
