Overcoming endocrine resistance in neoadjuvant endocrine therapy for early breast cancer

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (9) ◽  
pp. 1185-1187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Jackisch
2007 ◽  
Vol 25 (18_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1050-1050
Author(s):  
S. A. Massarweh ◽  
Y. L. Tham ◽  
H. Weiss ◽  
S. Fuqua ◽  
J. Huang ◽  
...  

1050 Background: Endocrine therapy for ER+ breast cancer is effective and relatively nontoxic, but is limited by de novo and acquired resistance. Preclinical studies suggest that complete ER blockade along with inhibition of co-expressed growth factor receptors enhances endocrine response and overcomes resistance. Methods: We conducted a phase II trial of combined anastrazole and fulvestrant with gefitinib, an EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor, as intial therapy in postmenopausal women with locoregional or metastatic ER+ breast cancer. A tumor core biopsy was done at baseline and after 3 weeks. Patients received treatment for 4 months. Surgery was then offered if the tumor was operable. Primary endpoint was clinical response as defined by RECIST criteria and secondary endpoints were safety/tolerability, complete pathologic response rate (pCR), and biomarker analysis. Planned sample size was 60 patients, but the study closed after 15 patients were enrolled because of poor accrual. Results: Median age at diagnosis was 67 years. Median clinical tumor size was 7 cm and 4 patients had metastases. 11 patients (73%) had ER+/PgR+ tumors and 4 (27%) had ER+/PgR- disease. 3 patients withdraw from the study before response was assessed. Of the12 remaining patients there were 2 complete responses (17%), 5 partial responses (42%), 5 with stable disease (42%), and 2 (17%) with progressive disease. Of the 7 patients who had surgery at 4 months, none had pCR. Most common adverse events were rash in 4 patients, Diarrhea in 4, joint symptoms in 3, and abnormal LFT’s in 3. All adverse events were reversible. Biomarkers, including arrays and Ki67, are pending and will be presented at the meeting. Conclusions: Complete ER blockade using anastrazole and fulvestrant with EGFR inhibition is well-tolerated and has activity in this cohort of patients with relatively advanced ER+ breast cancer. Despite its documented benefit and low toxicity, accrual to neoadjuvant endocrine therapy studies remains poor in the US, largely because of physician hesitance to refer patients for non-chemotherapy studies. More effort is needed to increase physician awareness about the value of endocrine therapy, and to increase accrual to trials that address the question of endocrine resistance. [Table: see text]


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanne Løkkegaard ◽  
Daniel Elias ◽  
Carla L. Alves ◽  
Martin V. Bennetzen ◽  
Anne-Vibeke Lænkholm ◽  
...  

AbstractResistance to endocrine therapy in estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer is a major clinical problem with poorly understood mechanisms. There is an unmet need for prognostic and predictive biomarkers to allow appropriate therapeutic targeting. We evaluated the mechanism by which minichromosome maintenance protein 3 (MCM3) influences endocrine resistance and its predictive/prognostic potential in ER+ breast cancer. We discovered that ER+ breast cancer cells survive tamoxifen and letrozole treatments through upregulation of minichromosome maintenance proteins (MCMs), including MCM3, which are key molecules in the cell cycle and DNA replication. Lowering MCM3 expression in endocrine-resistant cells restored drug sensitivity and altered phosphorylation of cell cycle regulators, including p53(Ser315,33), CHK1(Ser317), and cdc25b(Ser323), suggesting that the interaction of MCM3 with cell cycle proteins is an important mechanism of overcoming replicative stress and anti-proliferative effects of endocrine treatments. Interestingly, the MCM3 levels did not affect the efficacy of growth inhibitory by CDK4/6 inhibitors. Evaluation of MCM3 levels in primary tumors from four independent cohorts of breast cancer patients receiving adjuvant tamoxifen mono-therapy or no adjuvant treatment, including the Stockholm tamoxifen (STO-3) trial, showed MCM3 to be an independent prognostic marker adding information beyond Ki67. In addition, MCM3 was shown to be a predictive marker of response to endocrine treatment. Our study reveals a coordinated signaling network centered around MCM3 that limits response to endocrine therapy in ER+ breast cancer and identifies MCM3 as a clinically useful prognostic and predictive biomarker that allows personalized treatment of ER+ breast cancer patients.


Cancers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 1160
Author(s):  
Giusi La Camera ◽  
Luca Gelsomino ◽  
Amanda Caruso ◽  
Salvatore Panza ◽  
Ines Barone ◽  
...  

Breast cancer is the most common solid malignancy diagnosed in females worldwide, and approximately 70% of these tumors express estrogen receptor α (ERα), the main biomarker of endocrine therapy. Unfortunately, despite the use of long-term anti-hormone adjuvant treatment, which has significantly reduced patient mortality, resistance to the endocrine treatments often develops, leading to disease recurrence and limiting clinical benefits. Emerging evidence indicates that extracellular vesicles (EVs), nanosized particles that are released by all cell types and responsible for local and systemic intercellular communications, might represent a newly identified mechanism underlying endocrine resistance. Unraveling the role of EVs, released by transformed cells during the tumor evolution under endocrine therapy, is still an open question in the cancer research area and the molecular mechanisms involved should be better defined to discover alternative therapeutic approaches to overcome resistance. In this review, we will provide an overview of recent findings on the involvement of EVs in sustaining hormonal resistance in breast cancer and discuss opportunities for their potential use as biomarkers to monitor the therapeutic response and disease progression.


Author(s):  
Simon Peter Gampenrieder ◽  
Gabriel Rinnerthaler ◽  
Richard Greil

SummaryThe three top abstracts at the 2020 virtual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium regarding hormone-receptor-positive early breast cancer, from our point of view, were the long-awaited results from PenelopeB and RxPONDER as well as the data from the ADAPT trial of the West German Study Group. PenelopeB failed to show any benefit by adjuvant palbociclib when added to standard endocrine therapy in patients without pathologic complete response after neoadjuvant chemotherapy. RxPONDER demonstrated that postmenopausal patients with early hormone receptor positive (HR+)/human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 negative (HER2−) breast cancer, 1–3 positive lymph nodes and an Oncotype DX Recurrence Score of less than 26 can safely be treated with endocrine therapy alone. In contrast, in premenopausal women with positive nodes, adjuvant chemotherapy plays still a role even in case of low genomic risk. Whether the benefit by chemotherapy is mainly an indirect endocrine effect and if ovarian function suppression would be similarly effective, is still a matter of debate. The HR+/HER2− part of the ADAPT umbrella trial investigated the role of a Ki-67 response to a short endocrine therapy before surgery in addition to Oncotype DX—performed on the pretreatment biopsy—to identify low-risk patients who can safely forgo adjuvant chemotherapy irrespective of menopausal status.


The Breast ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 482-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sadako Akashi-Tanaka ◽  
Mutsuko Omatsu ◽  
Chikako Shimizu ◽  
Masashi Ando ◽  
Kotoe Terada ◽  
...  

2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ezzeldin M. Ibrahim ◽  
Marwan R. Al-Hajeili ◽  
Ali M. Bayer ◽  
Omalkhair A. Abulkhair ◽  
Ahmed A. Refae

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