Another PARP inhibitor showing promise

PARP inhibitors are unique molecules targeting only the PARP enzyme in BRCA 1/2 mutated cells, they are generally well tolerated as compared to chemotherapy. In this year at San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, the EMBRACA trial results were presented in abstract form.

The talazoparib arm patients reported better quality of life score as well as there was a significant delay in the time to deterioration

 

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Small tumors are good, or good tumors are small?

The above is an abbreviation of the title of a New England Journal of Medicine (N Engl J Med 2017; 376:2286-91), in this article, the authors discuss identification of a group of tumors that are composed of predominantly overdiagnosed tumors. In order to be clear, I have to start with few definitions.

Overdiagnosis refer to tumors dectected on screening that never would have led to clinical symptoms.

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Adjuvant Capecitabine the CREAT-X trial

CREAT-X, Capcetabine for Residual Cancer as Adjuvant Therapy trial is the first of it’s kind to look into further adjuvant chemotherapy in patients who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy.

Capecitabine adjuvant therapy is beneficial in Her2-negative Breast cancer with residual disease following Neoadjuvant therapy.

 

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HER2-Positive Metastatic Breast Cancer

HER2, or human epidermal growth factor 2, is a special protein (receptor) on the surface breast cancer cells, and it controls the growth of the cancer cells. The HER2 protein is present as a result of overexpression or amplification of the oncogene ERBB2. A tumor is considered HER2 positive by either the presence of HER2 protein presence and/or the overexpression of HER2 gene (the ERBB2). HER2 positive tumors are considered aggressive and have a tendency to recur, however, there are newer medications targeting HER2-positive cancer and led to significant improvement in outcome. 15% to 20% of all invasive breast cancer is reported to be HER2 positive. In this post, I will discuss the treatment of metastatic HER2 positive disease only, the nonmetastatic disease will be presented at a later date.

her2 testing must be done on biopsy material of metastatic site in all patients.

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