Metastatic breast cancer treatment
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Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1], Assistant Editor-in-Chief Jack Khouri
Overview
With rare exception, metastatic breast cancer is an incurable but treatable illness. Currently, it is managed as a chronic disease, especially the category that is ER-positive with predominantly bone or soft tissue metastasis. Chemotherapy, biologic therapy and endocrine therapy are all considered in the treatment of meatastatic breast cancer.
Principles of therapy
- The main aims of therapy are prolonging survival, improving quality of life and avoiding treatment-induced toxicity. Given that treatment is palliative, patients should be given treatment holidays in order to reduce drug-induced toxicity.
- HER2 overexpression and hormone receptor status are very important factors that guide therapy and influence prognosis.
- Multiagent chemotherapy regimens don't show significant survival benefit compared to single-drug regimens and augment toxicity.
- Chemotherapy is recommended for patients with ER-negative metastatic breast cancer and those with ER-positive breast cancer resistant to endocrine therapy or associated with an aggressive behavior.
- Trastuzumab increases the clinical benefit of first-line chemotherapy in metastatic breast cancer that overexpresses HER2.[1]
- Single-agent trastuzumab is active and well tolerated as first-line treatment of women with metastatic breast cancer with HER2 3+ overexpression by IHC or gene amplification by FISH.[2]
References
- ↑ Slamon DJ, Leyland-Jones B, Shak S, Fuchs H, Paton V, Bajamonde A et al. (2001) Use of chemotherapy plus a monoclonal antibody against HER2 for metastatic breast cancer that overexpresses HER2. N Engl J Med 344 (11):783-92. DOI:10.1056/NEJM200103153441101 PMID: 11248153
- ↑ Vogel CL, Cobleigh MA, Tripathy D, Gutheil JC, Harris LN, Fehrenbacher L et al. (2002) Efficacy and safety of trastuzumab as a single agent in first-line treatment of HER2-overexpressing metastatic breast cancer. J Clin Oncol 20 (3):719-26. PMID: 11821453