Dr. Burstein Discusses Key Updates from the SOFT Trial

Harold Burstein, MD, PhD, medical oncologist, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses some key findings from the follow-up data from the SOFT trial.

The SOFT trial was examining the outcomes of adding ovarian suppression to tamoxifen and standard chemother in patients with hormone receptor (HR)-positive breast cancer. Long-term data were presented at the 2017 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS) and, according to Burstein, there were three interesting key points.

First, the long-term follow-up showed that even the low-risk patient population saw clinical benefit with ovarian suppression. However, another key finding was discovering that the patient population that responds best to treatment, which is those who had a higher-risk disease. Overall, researchers see that there is an emerging survival benefit for patients who took ovarian-suppressing agents.

Findings like these are both encouraging and important, and should encourage young women to consider ovarian suppression as a part of their breast cancer treatment plan.