A study from the Austrian Breast & Colorectal Cancer Study Group indicates that women with metastasized breast cancer do not benefit from surgery performed prior to drug treatment. This could cause a paradigm shift in treatment of the disease.

A shorter course of radiation therapy given to breast cancer patients following mastectomy is safe and effective and cuts treatment time in half. That is according to data from a phase II clinical trial conducted by Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey investigators and other colleagues who examined a hypofractionated regimen given over three weeks versus the traditional six week course of treatment.

Eli Lilly and Co. said that following a pre-planned interim analysis for MONARCH 3, the trial met its primary endpoint of demonstrating statistically significant improvement in progression-free survival. In addition, improvement was shown in a key secondary endpoint of objective response rate.

Eli Lilly and Co. said its MONARCH 2 trial of abemaciclib met the primary endpoint of progression-free survival. The phase III study evaluated abemaciclib, a cyclin-dependent kinase 4 and CDK 6 inhibitor, in combination with fulvestrant in women with hormone-receptor-positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-negative, advanced breast cancer who have relapsed or progressed after endocrine therapy.

Results of a multicenter study of 129 women with advanced breast cancer show that a blood test that spots cancer-linked DNA correctly predicted that most of those patients with higher levels of the tumor markers died significantly earlier than those with lower levels.

Agendia Inc. has presented new prospective data demonstrating the strong impact of its 70-Gene Breast Cancer Recurrence Assay, MammaPrint, and the corresponding 80-Gene Molecular Subtyping Assay BluePrint, in clinical decision-making for patients with early-stage breast cancer in Germany.

A phase II study of abemaciclib, a cyclin-dependent kinase 4 and CDK 6 inhibitor, met its primary endpoint of reducing expression of Ki67, a biomarker of cell proliferation, after two weeks of treatment.

Results from the pivotal phase III MONALEESA-2 study show LEE011 (ribociclib) plus letrozole significantly extended progression-free survival (PFS), compared to a standard of care, letrozole, as a first-line treatment in postmenopausal women with hormone receptor positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 negative (HR+/HER2-) advanced or metastatic breast cancer (median PFS, 95% CI (19.3 months - not reached) vs 14.7 months (13.0 - 16.5 months); HR=0.556; p=0.00000329.

Eli Lilly and Co. said that following a pre-planned interim analysis of the MONARCH 2 trial, an independent data monitoring committee provided the recommendation to continue the study without modification as the interim efficacy criteria were not met.

Amgen and Allergan plc announced results from a phase III study evaluating efficacy and safety of biosimilar ABP 980 compared with trastuzumab in patients with human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-positive early breast cancer.