Br J Cancer: ABCSG-34 clinical trial reveals the effect of neoadjuvant therapy on breast cancer

Preoperative chemotherapy can be used for locally advanced breast cancer patients who can not be operated on .
At present, systemic neoadjuvant therapy has become a standard choice.
Preoperative treatment can improve the survival rate of breast cancer patients and provide relevant disease biological information.

Previous studies have shown that preoperative chemotherapy containing anthracyclines and taxanes has been used to treat patients with early-stage breast cancer.
The ABCSG-34 trial evaluated the activity of the MUC1 antigen-specific immunotherapy drug tecemotide in neoadjuvant therapy.

HER2-negative early breast cancer patients were recruited to participate in this randomized multicenter Phase 2 study.
In addition, the researchers randomly divided patients in the chemotherapy group (n=311) into epirubicin/cyclophosphamide (epirubicin/cyclophosphamide) and docetaxel (docetaxel, docetaxel) in regular or reverse order.
The primary endpoint of the study was the residual cancer burden (RCB) with or without tecemotide, and the RCB in the two groups of chemotherapy was the secondary endpoint.

ABCSG-34 test overview

The results showed that there was no significant difference in the RCB 0/1 rate (40.
1% vs.
37.
2%) or pathological complete remission rate (pCR, 24.
3% vs.
25%) between conventional or reverse order.
No new safety signals have been reported, and pre-treatment with docetaxel has no effect on the incidence of treatment delays or discontinuation.

RCB 0/1 rate and pCR rate of patients with conventional and reverse chemotherapy

All in all, the results of the study revealed that pre-treatment with docetaxel did not improve chemotherapy activity or tolerability.
The neoadjuvant treatment of anthracyclines is still an effective option for breast cancer patients.

Original source:

Bartsch, R.