Dr Abdou on Treatment Updates From the 2023 ASCO Annual Meeting in HR+/HER2– Breast Cancer

Yara Abdou, MD, assistant professor of medicine, Division of Oncology, Department of Medicine, University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Medicine, Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, UNC Health, discusses updates in the treatment of patients with hormone receptor (HR)–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer.

Several exciting data sets were presented at the 2023 ASCO Annual Meeting, Abdou begins. Previously, abemaciclib (Verzenio) received FDA approval as adjuvant therapy for patients with HR-positive, HER2-negative, node-positive, early breast cancer at high risk of recurrence. The agent was approved based on data from the phase 3 monarchE trial (NCT03155997), Abdou says.

The results of the phase 3 NATALEE trial (NCT03701334) were presented at the 2023 ASCO Annual Meeting, showing support for the new CDK4/6 inhibitor, the use of adjuvant ribociclib (Kisqali) in patients with HR-positive, HER2-negative early breast cancer, Abdou adds. It is exciting to see more options become available for patients in the early-stage setting, Abdou says. Findings from this phase 3 study demonstrated a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in invasive disease-free survival with the addition of ribociclib to endocrine therapy vs endocrine therapy alone, meeting the primary end point of the trial, Abdou says.

Also presented at the 2023 ASCO Annual Meeting was the final analysis of the phase 3 TROPiCS-02 study (NCT03901339), which confirmed the progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) benefit of sacituzumab govitecan-hziy (Trodelvy) vs treatment of physician’s choice in patients with pretreated, endocrine-resistant, HR-positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer, Abdou continues. Additionally, no new safety signals were seen with the extended follow-up, Abdou says. Overall, there was a lot of exciting data produced from this meeting in patients with early-stage and metastatic HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer, Abdou concludes.