Topic: Breaking Research News from sources other than Breastcancer.org

May 21, 2020 05:26PM BlueGirlRedState wrote:

Reading all the posts in various forums, it is increadible what is covered/what it not, the care, advice etc people get. The denial is being appealed, and one patient support advocate felt confident that insurance would cover all or most of it. Contacting my representatives is a waste of time. I have contacted them on several issues including health, and their replies often do not address what I wrote about, or are non-commital, or tell me why I am wrong. We passed an initiative on the ballot to expand Medicaid in this state, and legislators made an attempt to weaken or get rid of it (they failed). They also made an attempt to make the initiative process much more difficult. ( We know more than you do). So far that has failed as well. I do not celebrate the idea of "Medicare for All", because the focus is on insurance/who pays/how much, and not on health care itself. I know some people have no or poor coverage and this would be a chance to pay for treatment they cannot afford. So Medicare is certianly is part of the equation. The other day there was an interview on NPR with a woman whose surgery for BC had been postponed because of covid-19. Her tumor has grown a lot, and the treatment she now requires, is much more invasive. It sounded less hopeful as well.

May 26, 2020 05:35AM JoynerL wrote:

Saulius, thanks so much for the article. I was not aware of Tesetaxel. I will investigate further with my own MO. Very encouraging!

May 26, 2020 04:03PM Lumpie wrote:

https://www.whatnext.com/blog/posts/pd-l1-and-what-it-means-in-cancer-treatement

{Not research, per se, but an brief and accessible article about PD-L1, a bit of history of immunotherapy research, and a very brief explanation of how immunotherapy attempts to work.}

May 26, 2020 04:39PM Lumpie wrote:

morrigan_2575:

I am not aware of any standard protocols for giving H&P without a cytotoxin (chemo). (There may be instances in which physicans moderate or minimize the chemo for particularly frail or intolerant patients. There may have been clinical trials on this.)

Regarding "replace TCHP and AC+THP with Kadcyla," I personally think this would have many advantages; however, a recent clinical trial found that Kadcyla did not provide better outcomes than TCHP, nor was it deemed meaningfully less expensive, so they plan to make patients keep on getting TCHP. This assessment makes a huge error in appreciating patient experience, in my opinion. While "everyone is different" my experience of TCHP was on a different planet vs Kadcyla. Kadcyla was much easier for me to tolerate. Plus there is the issue of hair loss vs. not - which has implications beyond mere vanity. The trial was reported on this board. It would probably show up by searching for Kadcyla for early stage BC or something similar.

I thought AC was only given for TNBC now, but maybe that is not the case.

Thanks.

May 26, 2020 06:33PM morrigan_2575 wrote:

" am not aware of any standard protocols for giving H&P without a cytotoxin (chemo). (There may be instances in which physicans moderate or minimize the chemo for particularly frail or intolerant patients. There may have been clinical trials on this.)"

I read a post here or maybe on a Facebook group I belong too where the person mentioned her IDC was so small the MO felt she didn't need Chemo, just a year of Herceprin. But honestly I can't recall if this was recent or an older post.

"thought AC was only given for TNBC now, but maybe that is not the case."

I went to 3 MOs (ended up going with the first one). 2 of the 3 told me TCHP. The 3rd gave me the option of TCHP or AC+THP. She said the results were the same but, TCHP had more toxicity. I was planning on doing Cold Capping which doesn't work well with AC+T. Plus the money of doing weekly taxol with Cold Capping would have been too expensive.😁

I'm happy to hear Kadcyla treated you better than TCHP that seems to be the majority sentiment on the Kadcyla thread. I didn't have any awful time with TCHP, tolerated it well but, I'm worried about 14 Cycles of Kadcyla since it's got Chemo in there. I'm hoping for a pCR when I get my surgery so I can avoid Kadcyla but, I'll do it if I have to, no question

May 26, 2020 09:22PM Kanga_Roo wrote:

An interesting read
https://www.technologynetworks.com/cancer-research/news/how-carcinogens-trigger-development-of-breast-cancer-335197?utm_

May 27, 2020 04:40PM - edited May 27, 2020 04:40PM by Lumpie

sunandsea: Glad that is helpful. If widely adopted, that treatment option would be huge news for lots of people. Less travel, less time off work, and away from family and other obligations. Less reconstruction - or less going without reconstruction. Many forgo the less invasive option of lumpectomy because of challenges with accessing radiation therapy. We can hope that this may make the entire array of options more accessible to the people who need them. Good luck with your treatment!

May 29, 2020 08:07AM BevJen wrote:

Lumpie,

This is fascinating stuff. I've read about it before, but this is a great article. Thanks for posting!

May 29, 2020 10:28AM Lumpie wrote:

Thanks BevJen, I thought so too. I was just this week looking at radiation as a Tx option so it really caught my attention. Sure would be great if they could pin down a way to get that immune response to it work reliably!

May 29, 2020 11:18AM - edited May 29, 2020 11:19AM by Simone80

Lumpie,

Thanks for your posts. I just had a chance to read the one about using radiation. That is very interesting and promising. I wish they could get studies\trials going on some of these findings. It just seems like some of the more promising things happening are still in the labs.

May 29, 2020 01:14PM Lumpie wrote:

Santabarbarian, Simone80 and others: It can seem discouraging that there is so much promise from bench research but things don't move to the clinical trial phase. As many of you know, Metavivor funds research on metastatic breast cancer. Someone from the organization said within the last week, there are promising proposals, just not enough funding for all of them. Other organizations fund promising research, too. Unfortunately, I am not able to fund much beyond lunch! But I try to do my part with small donations here and there and fundraising and advocacy work where I can. I don't have to tell readers here how important research is. I think if we all do a little, we can accomplish a lot.

May 29, 2020 01:55PM morrigan_2575 wrote:

"Still other things are pretty well validated but hard to make $$ from so they never receive the gold standard of a double blind clinical trial. So they hover at the edge of breaking through to more widespread use but remain "untested"."

Isn't that the worst part?! 😕

May 29, 2020 11:39PM Lumpie wrote:

• The authors of this study evaluated 148 women with isolated breast cancer liver metastases, comparing outcomes between the 95 patients who underwent intervention (hepatectomy or radiofrequency ablation) and the 53 who did not. After a median follow-up of 36 months, there was no significant difference in progression-free survival between the treatment groups in the overall population. Subgroup analyses suggested a benefit with surgical intervention among patients who received systemic therapy and did not have preoperative progression.

• Hepatic surgery should be considered as a treatment option for select patients with isolated breast cancer liver metastases.

May 30, 2020 11:37AM - edited May 30, 2020 11:39AM by Lumpie

A novel biomarker identified a large subgroup of metastatic breast cancer patients who benefited from an immune checkpoint inhibitor....

Almost a fourth of patients with no identified actionable mutations had copy number alteration (CNA) in the PD-L1 gene. Patients without PD-L1 CNA had a median progression-free survival (PFS) of 9 months when treated with the PD-L1 inhibitor durvalumab (Imfinzi), whereas median PFS had yet to be reached in patients whose tumors had copy number gain (three or four copies) or amplification (more than four).

Data for the CNA analysis came from the SAFIR02 Breast Immuno trial...

https://www.medpagetoday.com/meetingcoverage/additionalmeetings/86683?xid=nl_mpt_SROBGYN_2020-05-30&eun=g1278169d0r&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ObGynUpdate_053020&utm_term=NL_Spec_OBGYN_Update_Active

https://cslide.ctimeetingtech.com/breast2020/attendee/confcal/session/calendar/2020-05-24

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02299999

May 30, 2020 12:11PM Lumpie wrote:

Use of hydroxychloroquine in cancer patients who are also diagnosed with COVID-19 provided no benefits, and may have worsened outcomes, researchers suggested.

Treatment with the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin to treat COVID-19 in cancer patients was associated with a 2.89-fold greater risk of 30-day mortality than use of neither drug, reported Jeremy Warner, MD, of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, in a late-breaker abstract at the virtual American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/meetingcoverage/asco/86738?xid=nl_popmed_2020-05-29&eun=g1278169d0r&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CoronaBreak_052920&utm_term=NL_Daily_Breaking_News_Active

https://ccc19.org/

ASCO conference coverage here:

https://www.medpagetoday.com/meetingcoverage/asco