Outcomes of patients with small and node-negative HER2-positive early breast cancer treated with adjuvant chemotherapy and anti-HER2 therapy-a sub-analysis of the ALTTO study.

BACKGROUND: Patients with small node-negative HER2-positive breast cancer are commonly treated with paclitaxel and 1 year of adjuvant trastuzumab. We performed a sub-analysis of the ALTTO trial to explore the long-term outcomes of patients with small node-negative tumours. METHODS: The ALTTO trial randomised 8381 patients with early HER2-positive BC treated with adjuvant chemotherapy (anthracycline/taxane- or taxane/carboplatin-based), to trastuzumab (T), lapatinib (L), their sequence (T → L) or their combination (L + T). Patients with tumours ≤3 cm and node-negative were included in this sub-analysis. RESULTS: A total of 2821 patients were analysed (median follow-up of 7 years). The median age was 52 years, and most patients had tumours ≤2 cm (64.3%). The 7-year disease-free survival (DFS) was 88.1% (95% CI: 86.7-89.3%). DFS was similar for arms T, T + L and T⟶L and significantly lower for arm L (stratified log-rank P = 0.031). The 7-year overall survival rate was 95.9% (95% CI: [95.0-96.6%) and the 7-year time-to-distant recurrence was 93.4% (95% CI: 92.3-94.4%). CONCLUSION: With most patients treated with anthracycline-based regimens, ALTTO shows that patients with small tumours treated with trastuzumab and concomitant chemotherapy have excellent long-term outcomes, similar to those of the APT trial. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Clinicaltrials.gov identifier NCT00490139.

Effects of physical exercise after treatment of early breast cancer: systematic review and meta-analysis.

PURPOSE: Randomized clinical trials are inconclusive regarding the role of physical exercise in anthropometric measurements, quality of life, and survival in breast cancer patients. Our aim was to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the effects of physical exercise on these outcomes in women who went through curative treatment of early-stage breast cancer. METHODS: Pubmed, Embase, Cochrane Library were searched for randomized clinical trial comparing physical exercise (counseling or structured programs with supervised/individualized exercise sessions) with usual care in women that went through for breast cancer treatment. Primary outcomes were overall survival and disease-free survival, while secondary outcomes were weight loss, body mass index, waist-hip ratio, percentage of body fat, and quality of life. RESULTS: We found 60 randomized clinical trials, only one of them showed mortality data; the HR for mortality was 0.45 (95% CI 0.21-0.97) for the intervention group when compared to the control group. Physical exercise was associated with weight reduction (- 1.36 kg, 95% CI - 2.51 to - 0.21, p = 0.02), lower body mass index (- 0.89 kg/m2, 95% CI - 1.50 to - 0.28, p < 0.01), and lower percentage of body fat (- 1.60 percentage points, 95% CI - 2.31 to - 0.88, p < 0.01). There was an increase in the quality of life (standardized mean difference of 0.45, 95% CI 0.20-0.69, p < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: The articles found had heterogeneous types of intervention, but they showed significant effects on anthropometric measures and quality of life. Among them, only one study had mortality as outcome and it showed physical exercise as a protective intervention. Despite these findings, publication bias and poor methodological quality were presented. Physical exercise should be advised for breast cancer survivors since it has no adverse effects and can improve anthropometrics measures and quality of life. PROSPERO registry: CRD42014008743.