Metastatic breast cancer - Highlights at ASCO 2006

Several contributions regarding metastatic breast cancer at this year's annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) were dealing with further optimizing the treatment of HER2-positive patients. Other contributions were concentrating on the improvement of classical treatments, such as chemotherapy or supportive therapies. In a randomized phase III study with anthracyline- and taxa ne-p retreated HER2-positive patients progressing on trastuzumab (Herceptin(R)), the tyrosine kinase inhibitor lapatinib in combination with capecitabine was superior to capecitabine alone. A randomized phase III study of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Gynakologische Onkologie (AGO) showed that paclitaxel/capecitabine was as effective as epirubicin/paclitaxel and equally well tolerated in the first-line setting in high-risk metastatic breast cancer patients. In a randomized phase II study in patients with bone metastases, the humanized antibody denosumab proved to be equal to intravenous bisphosphonate therapy. Denosumab was well tolerated, and none of the patients developed antidenosumab antibodies.