Safety Results and Analysis of Eribulin Efficacy according to Previous Microtubules-Inhibitors Sensitivity in the French Prospective Expanded Access Program for Heavily Pre-treated Metastatic Breast Cancer / Journal of the Korean Cancer Association, 대한암학회지

PURPOSE: Eribulin is approved for advanced breast cancers refractory to anthracyclines and taxanes. Efficacy according to sensitivity to previous therapies has been poorly explored. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Safety data were collected prospectively and we retrospectively collected efficacy data from the five French centres that participated in the Eribulin E7389-G000-398 expanded access program. Our main objectives were exploration of safety and analysis of eribulin efficacy (progression-free survival [PFS] and overall survival [OS]) according to sensitivity to the last microtubule-inhibiting agent administered. RESULTS: Median eribulin treatment duration was 3.3 months for the 250 patients included in this prospective single-arm study. Two hundreds and thirty-nine patients (95.6%) experienced an adverse event (AE) related to treatment including 129 (51.6%) with grade ≥ 3 AEs. The most frequently observed toxicities were cytopenias (59.6% of included patients), gastro-intestinal disorders (59.2%), and asthenia (56.4%). The most frequent grade 3-4 AE was neutropenia (37.2% with 4.8% febrile neutropenia). Median PFS and OS were 4.6 and 11.8 months, respectively. Patients classified as responders to the last microtubule-inhibiting therapy had a longer OS (hazard ratio [HR], 0.69; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.51 to 0.94; p=0.017), and tended to display a better PFS (HR, 0.78; 95% CI, 0.58 to 1.04; p=0.086). OS improvement was still significant in multivariate analysis (adjusted HR, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.35 to 0.79; p=0.002). CONCLUSION: This work based on a prospective study suggests that identification of patients likely to be more sensitive to eribulin could be based on their previous response to microtubules inhibitors.

Clinical application of proteomics in breast cancer: state of the art and perspectives

Breast cancer is one of the most frequent and deadly cancers in industrialized countries. The identification of accurate biomarkers that improve the screening, diagnosis, prognostication and prediction of therapeutic response or toxicity, and the identification of novel molecular therapeutic targets are crucial. Today, high-throughput molecular techniques permit investigators to systematically interrogate the genome, transcriptome, and proteome of cancer cells. During the past decade, mRNA expression profiling has been successfully applied to the molecular characterization of breast cancers. Application of proteomics-based techniques is also considered crucial for detecting new biomarkers. In this review, we present the proteomics-based methods that have been applied to date to breast cancer samples for diagnostic and prognostic purposes. Despite their current limits, these pioneering techniques are promising. The most important results as well as the current limitations and perspectives are summarized and discussed