Arimidex
in premenopausal patients progressing on Zoladex
Interview
with Neil Love, MD from Breast Cancer Update for Medical Oncologists,
Program 4 2000
Play
Audio Below:
Endocrine
maneuvers are often limited in premenopausal patients despite that
we know that premenopausal patients, who have got an ER-positive
tumor, are just as likely to be as hormone sensitive as a postmenopausal
woman. And so we decided that, having made her postmenopausal with
Zoladex, there was no reason why we shouldnt treat her in
the same way as we would have a postmenopausal woman who progresses
on tamoxifen. You stop the tamoxifen and start Arimidex. And so,
we had a series of women where thats what we did with them.
We stopped the tamoxifen, we continued the Zoladex, and then we
substituted the Arimidex for the tamoxifen. And as you could see
from the abstract, a significant percentage of those women responded.
In fact, I think it was about 89% of patients had either an objective
response or whats now called "durable stable disease," which
is stable disease for six months. And, I think thats an important
concept, which is the whole point no, that its not simply
you have to shrink a cancer down. That by stopping it growing for
a defined period you can actually show youve got control of
the cancer. Thats a worthwhile phenomenon, and so, we showed
that for this group of patients there werent many
but for this group of patients we found that 89% of them went on
to get some clinical benefit from Zoladex plus Arimidex, some of
them out to two and a half years and continuing. In fact, we havent
yet reached the median duration of control for this group of patients.
Formestane
is feasible and effective in elderly breast cancer patients with
comorbidity and disability. Venturino,
A.; Comandini, D.; Granetto, C.; Audisio, R. A.; Castiglione, F.;
Rosso, R., and Repetto, L. (Reprint available from: Venturino A
PO S Lazzaro, Via P Belli 26 I-12051 Alba CN Italy). Breast Cancer
Research & Treatment. 62(3):217-222, 2000 Aug. In process
Critique
of survival update analysis from two phase III anastrozole clinical
trials. Buzdar, A. U.; Wood; Wolter; Vogel; Bland, and Ravdin. Annals
of Surgical Oncology. 6(8 Suppl S):8S-11S, 1999 Dec. No abstract
Letrozole:
Which dose to be used? Buzdar, A. U. Journal of Clinical Oncology. 18(8):1802-1803,
2000 Apr. No abstract
Combined
endocrine therapy for breast cancer - New life for an old idea? Davidson, N. E. (Reprint available from: Davidson NE Johns Hopkins
Oncol Ctr 1650 Orleans St,Rm 409 Baltimore, MD 21231 USA). Journal
of the National Cancer Institute 92(11):859-860, 2000 Jun 7. No
abstract