For low-risk patients, less radiation is as good, I would love to hear input from Rad Onc. I did notice that the Rad Oncs I work with are adopting this.
On the basis of low risk of local recurrence in elderly patients with breast cancer after conservative surgery followed by whole breast irradiation (WBI), the Danish Breast Cancer Group initiated the noninferiority external-beam partial breast irradiation (PBI) trial (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00892814). We hypothesized that PBI was noninferior to WBI regarding breast induration.
Patients operated with breast conservation for relatively low-risk breast cancer were randomly assigned to WBI versus PBI, and all had 40 Gy/15 fractions. The primary end point was 3-year grade 2-3 breast induration.
In total, 865 evaluable patients (434 WBI and 431 PBI) were enrolled between 2009 and 2016. Median follow-up was 5.0 years (morbidity) and 7.6 years (locoregional recurrence). The 3-year rate of induration was 9.7% for WBI and 5.1% for PBI (P = .014). Large breast size was significantly associated with induration with a 3-year incidence of 13% (WBI) and 6% (PBI) for large-breasted patients versus 6% (WBI) and 5% (PBI) for small-breasted patients. PBI showed no increased risk of dyspigmentation, telangiectasia, edema, or pain, and patient satisfaction was high. Letrozole and smoking did not increase the risk of radiation-associated morbidity. Sixteen patients had a locoregional recurrence (six WBI and 10 PBI; P = .28), 20 patients had a contralateral breast cancer, and eight patients had distant failure (five WBI and three PBI). A nonbreast second cancer was detected in 73 patients (8.4%), and there was no difference between groups.
External-beam PBI for patients with low-risk breast cancer was noninferior to WBI in terms of breast induration. Large breast size was a risk factor for radiation-associated induration. Few recurrences were detected and unrelated to PBI.
MammaPrint did not predict distant recurrence, but it did predict patients who may benefit from extended hormonal therapy. We do have breast index, so now we have options. Breast index can predict the possibility of recurrence though by helping to determine the level of risk.
This study confirms what we saw in initial reports showing the addition of pembro increasing the rate of ypathological complete response (ypCR’s) in the neoadjuvant setting for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). New data shows a 5% improvement (87 vs 82%) in overall survival (OS) with the quadruplet. Higher gains but at higher cost of toxicity. The fact that adjuvant intraosseous (IO) does not seem to improve outcomes, but neoadjuvant chemo+IO does show intact tumor-immune interactions to create maximum treatment effectiveness is most likely real. Of note, this seems mostly independent of programmed death-ligand 1 (PDL1) status.
Adding Inavolisib to CKD4/6 inhibitor and AI improved progression-free survival (almost doubled 15 vs 7m) but toxicity was higher still in the single digits (hyperglycemia, diarrhea, stomatitis… all less than 6% G3/4).
Well done study showing a 20% decrease in recurrence risk when using dose dense therapy [EC]/D compared to conventional dose [FEC]/D. Sometimes it is worth it to push.
Myth busted. In aggressive breast cancer, no need to start chemotherapy now, ET and CKD4/6 inhibitors are better tolerated with significant progression-free survival (PFS) benefit and same response rate.
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