Verzenio Dose Reductions Don’t Worsen Breast Cancer Outcomes for Older Patients

Older patients with breast cancer still experienced a clinical benefit with Verzenio (abemaciclib) when the dose was reduced — proving that dose reductions may be a better plan than stopping treatment altogether, according to findings from the monarchE trial, that were presented at the 2023 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting.

“Using dose reductions or lowering the amount somebody may take per day to help them feel better day to day, really doesn't impact their outcome and probably should be used more frequently instead of stopping the drug altogether,” Dr. Erika P. Hamilton, director of breast and gynecologic cancer research at Sarah Cannon Research Institute in Nashville, said in an interview with CURE®.

Findings from monarchE showed that in patients aged 65 and older, those treated with Verzenio plus endocrine therapy had a four-year invasive disease-free survival rate (percentage of patients who did not have evidence of invasive disease) of 82%, and those under the age of 65 had a similar invasive disease-free survival rate of 86.5%.

READ MORE: Patients with HR+, HER2–, Early Breast Cancer Experienced Survival Improvement with Verzenio Plus Endocrine Therapy

Transcript

(Verzenio) is approved for patients who are high risk or have node-positive disease and hormone receptor-positive early breast cancer. We did an analysis by age of monarchE asking the question of whether our older patients — over 65 — get as much benefit from (Verzenio) as a drug, and also how they feel on it, how they tolerate it.

What we saw is that (Verzenio) works equally well for older patients compared to younger patients, and really, in general is tolerated about the same, we did see more people stopping drug or needing to lower the dose of the drug that they were taking. But despite the fact that some patients lower the dose of the drug, those patients who got less drugs seem to do equally as well, meaning that they were still getting benefit from (Verzenio). And so, what this tells us is that using dose reductions, or lowering the amount somebody may take per day to help them feel better day to day, really doesn't impact their outcome and probably should be used more frequently instead of stopping the drug altogether.

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