Breast cancer survival chances increase with faster treatment

Treatment with the chemotherapy agent capecitabine increased disease-free survival for women with HER2-negative breast cancer that was not eliminated by presurgery chemotherapy, according to results from the phase III CREATE-X clinical trial presented at the 2015 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, held December 8-12.

Specifically, in the group of patients whose tumors were 2 cm (n = 950), Gnant noted, “the absolute difference goes to about 4% after 3 years, 7% at 5 years, and more than 10% at 7 years-that’s quite a relevant difference”.

Denosumab is not cheap – it costs about $1,650 per injection, according to The New York Times, though the price could vary depending on where the drug is obtained.

Compared with patients who received chemotherapy within 31 days of surgery, the study reports no adverse outcomes were associated with time to chemotherapy of 31 to 90 days of surgery.

“This is the most comprehensive study of the subject ever performed, and includes two extraordinarily large groups from two of the largest cancer databases in the United States”. That compared with only 59.7 percent of women who’d undergone a mastectomy with no radiation.

Previous research shows some breast cancer medications significantly increase the risk of heart failure, but a new study finds that risk can be reduced when breast cancer patients combine heart drugs with chemo.

The only exception appeared to be in the subgroup of patients with triple-negative breast cancer. “Furthermore, determinants of delay in TTC [time to chemotherapy] were sociodemographic in nature; better understanding and removing barriers to access of care in vulnerable populations should be a priority”, the study concludes.

Finally, lead study author Dr. Richard Bleicher shares: “This is critical information because almost every patient asks either “how long do I have before I have to schedule surgery” or ‘can I do X, Y or Z before I begin my treatment?'”

Data were analyzed for 95,544 patients (mostly women, average age 75) in the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER)-Medicare database.

Risk of complications from mastectomy plus reconstruction was two times higher than lumpectomy and WBI for both younger and older women, and it remained so after researchers adjusted for other differences in ways patients were treated. While overall survival was lower with each interval of delay increase, the decline was most pronounced in patients with stage I and stage II disease. It is important to remark that the connection between time of surgery and treatment with risk of death, was more likely to be significant in patients with earlier stages of the disease.

Mum-of-three Trish Jamieson, 62, lost her sister Noreen to breast cancer at the age of 38 in 1992 and also had a family history of the disease.

The majority of women – 78 percent in one data set and 70 percent in the other – got surgery within 30 days of diagnosis.

In another study, it was found that delaying chemotherapy following surgery by 90 days or more lowered survival odds by 34 percent, say researchers.

In addition to dealing with the shock and confusion that comes with a breast cancer diagnosis, many newly-diagnosed patients also must cope with bladder problems.

Note that this study was published as an abstract and presented at a conference.

“There’s no doubt that people make these aggressive decisions based on their fear of cancer coming back or taking their life, regardless of the data that doesn’t necessarily support that”, says breast surgeon Dr. Mary Hooks of Vanderbilt University Medical Center.