How do you impress a group of oncologists enough to get a standing ovation, short of announcing a cure for cancer? You present some outstanding clinical data and create a new breast cancer category.
Pharmaceutical companies AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo did just that at the most recent ASCO (American Society of Clinical Oncology) annual conference in early June 2022.
I have never attended an ASCO conference, though I did get highights from a very helpful online event, the CURE® Educated Patient® Metastatic Breast Cancer Summit. It was held about a week after ASCO and delivered by a number of doctors and other providers from the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University. CURE presents their Educated Patient Summits for a number of
The clinical data from a group of MBC patients
Clinical trial data show that this new drug, Enhertu, reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 50% and the risk of death by 36% in a group of patients with previously treated HER2-low metastatic breast cancer. (Source: Fierce Pharma)
A new type of breast cancer?
Anyone diagnosed with breast cancer learns two characteristics of their disease that will help determine treatment options:
- Hormone receptor status, whether it’s positive or negative. According to the Susan G. Komen® organization, 70-80 percent of breast cancers are hormone receptor-positive.
- HER2 (human epidermal growth factor receptor 2) status, also classified (up until now maybe) as either HER2 positive and HER2 negative.
It turns out that HER2 status is not so binary, either negative or positive, after all. Over 60% of HER2-negative breast cancers actually have some HER2 proteins on the surface of their cells, but not enough to be classified HER2-positive.
These cancers are now called HER2-low.
Jane Lowe Meisel, M.D., breast cancer expert with Emory University’s Winship Cancer Institute, states:
“By effectively creating a new category of breast cancer, HER2-low, this trial will redefine how we classify breast cancer.”
Angus Liu, Questex senior staff writer, published by Fierce Pharma
Enhertu availability in the US
AstraZeneca announced on May 5, 2022, that Enhertu has been approved for patients in the US with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer treated with a prior anti-HER2-based regimen. The announcement also states that Enhertu is approved in more than 40 countries.
“This is an important day for the breast cancer community. With this approval, Enhertu now provides a new treatment option for patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer which can be used earlier in treatment to potentially delay progression of disease.”
Catherine Ormerod, Executive Vice President, Strategy and Mission, Living Beyond Breast Cancer
Good news for some metastatic breast cancer patients
Sometimes it seems that cancer treatments are getting more complicated and confusing. The good news is that these new inroads are leading to new treatment options to help more people live longer. As cancer research digs ever deeper into the workings of cancer in all its forms and stages, the body of knowledge grows and builds hope for all us fighting and surviving this disease.