Phase 3 RxPONDER Trial May Empower Patients with Breast Cancer on Their Treatment Decisions

Video

In a recent trial, the addition of chemotherapy to endocrine therapy showed clinical benefit in premenopausal women with lymph node-positive, HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer.

Menopausal status may help to determine the clinical benefit derived from the addition of chemotherapy to endocrine therapy in women with hormone receptor (HR)–positive, HER2-negative, lymph node–positive breast cancer, who have a recurrence score between 0 and 25, according to a study presented at the 2020 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

Dr. Kevin Kalinsky, who is the acting associate professor in the Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology at Emory University School of Medicine, director of the Glenn Family Breast Center and director of breast medical oncology at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, spoke to CURE® about what the trial results mean for patients.

Transcription:

So, this information really does empower patients. And it empowers every patient to be able to make a decision. So, if you (have a patient with) a tumor that has 123 (lymph) nodes involved, that's hormone receptor-positive and HER2 negative, and there's a potential benefit for checking this test. So, for postmenopausal women to determine, “Do I need chemotherapy or do I not?” And for the premenopausal women, there could be prognostic information that can be yielded from this test.

And it was the absolute benefit of getting chemotherapy. So, you know, we've moved beyond this kind of one-size-fits-all approach. And we're going to be increasingly making decisions based upon biology and that's where this study helps to continue to inform.

For more news on cancer updates, research and education, don’t forget to subscribe to CURE®’s newsletters here.

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Jessica McDade, B.S.N., RN, OCN, in an interview with CURE
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For patients with cancer, the ongoing chemotherapy shortage may cause some anxiety as they wonder how they will receive their drugs. However, measuring drugs “down to the minutiae of the milligrams” helped patients receive the drugs they needed, said Alison Tray. Tray is an advanced oncology certified nurse practitioner and current vice president of ambulatory operations at Rutgers Cancer Institute in New Jersey. If patients are concerned about getting their cancer drugs, Tray noted that having “an open conversation” between patients and providers is key. “As a provider and a nurse myself, having that conversation, that reassurance and sharing the information is a two-way conversation,” she said. “So just knowing that we're taking care of you, we're going to make sure that you receive the care that you need is the key takeaway.” In June 2023, many patients were unable to receive certain chemotherapy drugs, such as carboplatin and cisplatin because of an ongoing shortage. By October 2023, experts saw an improvement, although the “ongoing crisis” remained. READ MORE: Patients With Lung Cancer Face Unmet Needs During Drug Shortages “We’re really proud of the work that we could do and achieve that through a critical drug shortage,” Tray said. “None of our patients missed a dose of chemotherapy and we were able to provide that for them.” Tray sat down with CURE® during the 49th Annual Oncology Nursing Society Annual Congress to discuss the ongoing chemo shortage and how patients and care teams approached these challenges. Transcript: Particularly at Hartford HealthCare, when we established this infrastructure, our goal was to make sure that every patient would get the treatment that they need and require, utilizing the data that we have from ASCO guidelines to ensure that we're getting the optimal high-quality standard of care in a timely fashion that we didn't have to delay therapies. So, we were able to do that by going down to the minutiae of the milligrams on hand, particularly when we had a lot of critical drug shortages. So it was really creating that process to really ensure that every patient would get the treatment that they needed. For more news on cancer updates, research and education, don’t forget to subscribe to CURE®’s newsletters here.
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