Combination therapy is effective in patients with recurrent ER-positive endometrial cancer

Results from a recent clinical trial show that a combination therapy that targets cancer cells from both internally and externally leads to tumor shrinkage or stabilization in 75% of patients with recurrent or persistent estrogen receptor (ER-)-positive endometrial cancer

The phase 2 study evaluated the efficacy of the targeted drug abemaciclib in combination with the aromatase inhibitor letrozole in 30 patients with recurrent ER-positive endometrial cancer

At a mean follow-up of 12.

For most patients, the two-drug regimen was tolerable: Only two of the drugs left the study because of toxic side effects

Panagiotis Konstantinopoulos, MD, of Dana-Farber's, first author of the study, who will present the findings at the SGO meeting, said: "When we compared the efficacy of this regimen with that of other endocrine therapies for endometrial cancer "We can see that this combination is very promising

Endometrial cancer starts in the lining of the uterus and is the sixth most common cancer in the world, with more than 400,000 women diagnosed with it each year

Endocrine therapy, designed to reduce the amount of estrogen reaching tumor cells, is an option for patients whose cancers have begun to grow after chemotherapy and immunotherapy, or those with slow-growing cancers and relatively mild symptoms

Letrozole works by preventing an enzyme in fat tissue from converting certain hormones into estrogen, thereby reducing overall estrogen levels

Analysis of the patient's tumor tissue showed that regardless of the grade of the tumor (how abnormal its cells looked under the microscope), whether it had received hormone therapy, or the presence of progesterone receptors on the tumor cells, the response to the regimen would be different.

"Based on our findings, the letrozole/abedazole combination in recurrent ER-positive endometrial cancer warrants further evaluation," Konstantinopoulos said