New breast cancer treatment is tested

A NEW treatment for patients with a common type of breast cancer has cut the risk of recurrence by a quarter, a new study has shown.

Patients with hormone receptor positive (HR+) early stage breast cancer at a high risk of recurrence were recruited to the global randomised study led by the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust.

The phase three monarchE study, with 5,637 patients in 38 countries, has been described as “one of the most promising breakthroughs for patients with this type of breast cancer in the last 20 years”, the institution said.

It tested if patients taking the CDK 4/6 inhibitor abemaciclib along with hormone therapy following standard of care treatments such as chemotherapy, surgery and/or radiotherapy would reduce the risk of recurrence compared with the standard hormone treatment alone.

Over two years, it found a 25% reduction in recurrence of cancer when abemaciclib was added to the standard hormone therapy compared with hormone therapy alone.

Some 11.3% of patients in the control group suffered a relapse of their cancer compared with 7.8% of those in the abemaciclib group, Royal Marsden said.

Around 70% of breast cancer patients have hormone receptor positive tumours, and a proportion of those have a higher risk of relapse in the first two years, it added.

Professor Stephen Johnston, consultant medical oncologist at the Royal Marsden and professor of breast cancer medicine at the Institute of Cancer Research, said: “This research could potentially save many lives in the future.”