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Advanced breast cancer represents a challenge for patients and for physicians due its dynamic genomic changes yielding to a resistance to treatments. The main goal is to improve quality of live and survival of the patients through the most appropriate subsequent therapies based on the knowledge of the natural history of the disease. In these guidelines, we summarize current evidence and available therapies for the medical management of advanced breast cancer.

Purpose: Most hormone receptor (HR)+/HER2− breast cancer patients respond unfavorably to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC); however, genomic tests may identify those patients who are likely to benefit. Using the Prosigna assay, we first evaluated the technical performance of core needle biopsy (CNB) tissues. We then determined whether Prosigna risk of relapse (ROR) score and intrinsic subtype predicted response to NAC in HR+/HER2− patients using CNB samples.Experimental Design: Using the NanoString's nCounter Dx analysis system and a development tissue sample set, we established tissue requirements and assay output variance. We then evaluated the concordance in subtype and correlation in ROR between CNBs and corresponding surgical resection specimens (SRS) in a second independent sample set. Finally, we analyzed 180 independent CNB samples from HR+/HER2− patients who were treated with NAC and correlated ROR and intrinsic subtype with pathologic response.Results: Intra- and interbiopsy variabilities were 2.2 and 6.8 ROR units, respectively. Subtype concordance within multiple CNBs was high for the 4- and 3-subtype classifications (k = 0.885 and 0.889, respectively). Correlation in Prosigna ROR score observed between paired CNBs and SRS was high (r ≥ 0.90), and subtype concordance was also high for the 4- and 3-subtype classifications (kappa = 0.81 and 0.91, respectively). Prosigna results obtained from the HR+/HER2− patient samples showed that both ROR (P = 0.047) and intrinsic subtype (OR LumA vs. non-LumA = 0.341, P = 0.037) were significant predictors of response to NAC.Conclusions: Prosigna ROR and intrinsic subtype are readily obtained from CNB samples in normal practice and reliably predict response to NAC in HR+/HER2− patients. Clin Cancer Res; 22(3); 560–6. ©2015 AACR.

Supplemental Methods, Tables and Figures Tables Table S1. CES association with chemotherapy sensitivity (measured as pCR) in the MDACC-based dataset. Table S2. CES association with chemotherapy sensitivity (measured as Residual Cancer Burden [RCB]) in the MDACC-based dataset. Model A. Table S3. CES association with chemotherapy sensitivity (measured as Residual Cancer Burden [RCB]) in the MDACC-based dataset. Model B. Table S4. Univariate association of CES and various signatures with chemotherapy sensitivity in HR+/HER2-negative disease from the MDACC-based dataset. Table S5. Association of CES and PAM50 Proliferation Signature with chemotherapy sensitivity in HR+/HER2-negative disease from the MDACC-based dataset. Table S6. Association of CES and CHEMOPRED Signature with chemotherapy sensitivity in HR+/HER2-negative disease from the MDACC-based dataset. Table S7. Association of CES and the proliferation component of the Genomic Health Index (GHI; OncotypeDX Recurrence Score) with chemotherapy sensitivity in HR+/HER2- negative disease from the MDACC-based dataset. Table S8. Association of CES and Genomic Grade Index (GGI) Signature with chemotherapy sensitivity in HR+/HER2-negative disease from the MDACC-based dataset. Table S9. Association of CES and SET index Signature with chemotherapy sensitivity in HR+/HER2-negative disease from the MDACC-based dataset. Table S10. Association of CES and RCBPRED Signature with chemotherapy sensitivity in HR+/HER2-negative disease from the MDACC-based dataset. Table S11. Association of CES and DLDA30 Signature with chemotherapy sensitivity in HR+/HER2-negative disease from the MDACC-based dataset. Table S12. Association of CES and ROR-P Signature with chemotherapy sensitivity in HR+/HER2-negative disease from the MDACC-based dataset. Table S13. Association of CES and Ki67 by IHC with chemotherapy sensitivity in HR+/HER2-negative disease of the Malaga cohort. 7 Table S14. Association of CES and PAM50 ROR with chemotherapy sensitivity in HR+/HER2-negative disease of the Malaga cohort. Table S15. CES association with endocrine sensitivity in the Marsden dataset (n=103). Table S16. CES association with endocrine sensitivity in the Marsden dataset within HER2-negative disease (n=89). Figures Fig. S1. Association of CES with Miller-Payne following chemotherapy in HR+/HER2- negative disease from the Malaga-based cohort. Fig. S2. CES association with endocrine sensitivity in the Edinburgh dataset (n=120). (A) Tumor volume changes of each patient and response classification. (B) Association of CES and other variables with response (defined as at least 70% reduction by 90 days) in the overall population. (C) Association of CES and other variables with response within HER2-negative disease. Fig. S3. Association of CES with pCR in the combined dataset from the MDACC- and Malaga-based cohorts.

Supplementary Figure S1 and Supplementary Tables S1-S2. Supplementary Figure S1. Diagram of tissue block usage for CNB Development Study and Chemo-prediction Validation Study. Supplemental Table S1. Top-10 and bottom-10 Prosigna gene-correlations between paired CNBs and SRS. Supplemental Table S2. Distribution of the Prosigna subtypes within the three main pathology-based groups in 39 independent metastatic samples.

Purpose: Hormone receptor–positive (HR+) breast cancer is clinically and biologically heterogeneous, and subgroups with different prognostic and treatment sensitivities need to be identified.Experimental Design: Research-based PAM50 subtyping and expression of additional genes was performed on 63 patients with HR+/HER2− disease randomly assigned to neoadjuvant multiagent chemotherapy versus endocrine therapy in a phase II trial. The biology associated with treatment response was used to derive a PAM50-based chemoendocrine score (CES). CES's predictive ability was evaluated in 4 independent neoadjuvant data sets (n = 675) and 4 adjuvant data sets (n = 1,505). The association of CES, intrinsic biology, and PAM50 risk of relapse (ROR) was explored across 6,007 tumors.Results: Most genes associated with endocrine sensitivity were also found associated with chemotherapy resistance. In the chemotherapy test/validation data sets, CES was independently associated with pathologic complete response (pCR), even after adjusting for intrinsic subtype. pCR rates of the CES endocrine–sensitive (CES-E), uncertain (CES-U), and chemotherapy-sensitive (CES-C) groups in both data sets combined were 25%, 11%, and 2%, respectively. In the endocrine test/validation data sets, CES was independently associated with response. Compared with ROR, >90% of ROR-low and ROR-high tumors were identified as CES-E and CES-C, respectively; however, each CES group represented >25% of ROR-intermediate disease. In terms of survival outcome, CES-C was associated with poor relapse-free survival in patients with ROR-intermediate disease treated with either adjuvant endocrine therapy only or no adjuvant systemic therapy, but not in patients treated with (neo)adjuvant chemotherapy.Conclusions: CES is a genomic signature capable of estimating chemoendocrine sensitivity in HR+ breast cancer beyond intrinsic subtype and risk of relapse. Clin Cancer Res; 23(12); 3035–44. ©2016 AACR.

Breast cancer survivors (BCS) may face functional alterations after surgical intervention. Upper Limb Disorders (ULDs) are highly prevalent even years after a diagnosis. Clinicians may assess the upper limbs after breast cancer. The Upper Limb Functional Index (ULFI) has been validated across different populations and languages. This study aimed to assess the psychometric properties of the Upper Limb Functional Index Spanish version (ULFI-Sp) in the BCS. Methods: A psychometric validation study of the ULFI-Sp was conducted on 216 voluntary breast cancer survivors. The psychometric properties were as follows: analysis of the factor structure by maximum likelihood extraction (MLE), internal consistency, and construct validity by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Results: The factor structure was one-dimensional. ULFI-Sp showed a high internal consistency for the total score (α = 0.916) and the regression score obtained from MLE (α = 0.996). CFA revealed a poor fit, and a new 14-item model (short version) was further tested. The developed short version of the ULFI-SP is preferable to assess upper limb function in Spanish BCS. Conclusions: Given the high prevalence of ULD in this population and the broader versions of ULFI across different languages, this study’s results may be transferred to clinical practice and integrated as part of upper limb assessment after breast cancer.

Breast cancer (BC) is the most frequent neoplasia affecting women worldwide normally detected at early stages. In this regard, early diagnosis drastically decreases mortality, however, around 20% of these patients will later relapse. This is mainly caused by undetectable molecular residual disease (MRD) not eliminated by standard primary treatments. Therefore, it is crucial to detect the after-treatment MRD to stratify the patients by their risk of relapse. Liquid biopsies have emerged as non-invasive method to obtain information about tumors and improve clinical cancer management. Regarding this, much has been hypothesized about utilizing high blood volumes to overcome the necessity of complex and resource-intensive next generation sequencing (NGS) methodologies to detect highly diluted blood tumor components in localized cancers. Herein, we employed a combined analysis of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) and circulating tumor cells (CTCs) together with high blood volumes and single-assay droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) to detect MRD with ultra-high sensitivity. We prospectively assayed 124 samples extracted at baseline, post-neoadjuvant therapy (NAT), post-surgery and a follow-up on a six-monthly basis. A median of 76.40 mL of blood to detect CTCs and 40 mL of plasma to detect ctDNA per patient from 19 BC women were used in this study. ddPCR assays were performed with a median of 14 partitions per determination to detect ctDNA and 12 partitions for CTCs. Overall, ctDNA, CTCs and ctDNA and/or CTCs were detected in 84.21%, 66.66% and 89.47% respectively in the pre-treatment blood samples. MRD (ctDNA and/or CTCs) was detected in 73.68% of the after NAT blood samples. On the other hand, it was detected in 46.66% and 70.00% of the post-surgery and follow-up samples respectively. Post-NAT MRD was detected in 57.14% (4/7) and 83.33% (10/12) of patients with and without pathological complete response pCR respectively. To note, the discordant patients achieving pCR in tissue with detectable MRD in blood were high-risk BC. Importantly, in one of the two patients without pCR and no MRD detected, not enough sample were available to complete the analysis. The other discordant patient presented a localized disease with residual cancer burden value of 1 and no lymph nodes affected. In 1 out of 19 (5.26%) patient clinically relapsed with a positive MRD detection 6 months earlier. Applying this methodology, we observed a sensitivity of 0.004% in ctDNA detection and 0.224 CTCs per mL of blood. Overall, this novel methodology greatly improves sensitivity for ctDNA and CTCs detection in treatment-naïve early BC. In addition, MRD was successfully detected in post-treatment samples antedating clinical relapse by 6 months in one patient. This prospective study is potentially demonstrating that using high blood volumes and a single-assay ddPCR is a cost-effective strategy to monitor localized BC and predict relapses. Citation Format: Alfonso Alba-Bernal, Ana Godoy-Ortiz, María Emilia Domínguez-Recio, Begoña Jimenez-Rodriguez, María Elena Quirós-Ortega, Esperanza López-López, Guillermo Carbajosa-Antona, Jesús Peralta-Linero, Luis Vicioso, Estefanía Bellagarza-García, Guadalupe Dolores Garrido-Ruiz, Cynthia Robles-Podadera, Alicia Garrido-Aranda, María Dunia Roldán-Díaz, Jesús Velasco-Suelto, Rocío Lavado-Valenzuela, Martina Álvarez, Nuria Ribelles, Javier Pascual, Emilio Alba, Iñaki Comino-Méndez. Increasing blood volumes to detect minimal residual disease in neoadjuvant-treated early breast cancer patients. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2023; Part 1 (Regular and Invited Abstracts); 2023 Apr 14-19; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(7_Suppl):Abstract nr 6610.

Introduction Breast cancer survivors may suffer side effects from treatment, such as impaired upper limb function after surgery, which may be affected by a range of factors. Aim The aim of this study is to analyse the association between upper limb function and strength, fear avoidance, and central sensitisation symptoms among breast cancer survivors, and to explore how these variables are associated with upper limb function. Design Validation cohort. Setting Institutional Practice at Public Hospital PATIENTS: 174 breast cancer survivors who had been undergone surgery for a primary tumour. Interventions Not applicable. Main outcome measure Upper limb function was measured by the Upper Limb Functional Index (ULFI-Sp). Independent outcomes were: handgrip strength, which was measured using a Jamar dynamometer on the dominant side; fear avoidance, measured using the Fear-Avoidance Components Scale (FACS-Sp); and central sensitisation symptoms, that were measured using the Central Sensitisation Inventory (CSI-Sp). A linear regression model explaining the ULFI-Sp results was constructed with the variables. Results The regression model was significant (F=46.826; p=0.00), and explained 45% of the variance of the ULFI values. All variables showed strong associations with upper limb function. Conclusions Greater upper limb function is associated with higher grip strength, lower fear-avoidance behaviour and fewer central sensitisation symptoms among breast cancer survivors. These variables explained 45% of the upper limb function in the regression model, and concur with earlier research showing that factors such as central sensitisation symptoms and kinesiophobia negatively affect upper limb function in such patients. Clinicians should therefore take into account strength, fear avoidance, and central sensitisation symptoms when considering interventions aimed at improving upper limb function among breast cancer survivors. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Background Breast cancer survivors (BCS) face several symptoms and are at higher risk of weight gain following diagnosis. Current literature shows that both exercise and diet play a key role in recovery of BCS. However, there is a gap between current guidelines and the real-world context. The aim of this article is to describe the process behind a free, not-for-profit community-based therapeutic exercise and education programme (TEEP) for BCS in the clinical setting. Methods The “Onco-Health Club” (OHC) consists of therapeutic exercise (TE) intervention aimed at ameliorating cancer-related fatigue (CRF) and improving QoL and physical function. TE is supplemented with nutritional education, providing information about the Mediterranean diet. To this end, patients are recruited from an oncologist and are referred to a physiotherapist and a nutritionist for baseline assessment. TEEP consists of a 3-month intervention, delivered twice a week in a group format with 1 h of TE and 30 min of nutritional education. BCS then have a final assessment and are advised to continue with a healthy lifestyle. Data about referral, compliance and assessment were collected. Results From May 2017 to February of 2020, a total of 158 patients were recruited from 8 cohorts and 142 initially started the OHC. From 119 that joined the program, 96 patients were considered to have finished it with good adherence (assistance > 80%). BCS significantly improved their QoL, as well as upper and lower limb’s function, and increased their level of physical activity. CRF tended to decrease (p = 0.005). Conclusions This study obtained data on recruitment, compliance, and possible limitations of these kinds of programmes in a real-world context. Further research is needed in order to optimize patient engagement and compliance, as well as to determine the transferability of these programmes in the clinical setting. Trial registration NCT03879096, Registered 18th March 2019. Retrospectively registered.

Summary Background Several de-escalation approaches are under investigation in patients with HER2-positive, early-stage breast cancer. We assessed early metabolic responses to neoadjuvant trastuzumab and pertuzumab using 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG)-PET (18F-FDG-PET) and the possibility of chemotherapy de-escalation using a pathological response-adapted strategy. Methods We did a multicentre, randomised, open-label, non-comparative, phase 2 trial in 45 hospitals in Spain, France, Belgium, Germany, the UK, Italy, and Portugal. Eligible participants were women aged 18 years or older with centrally confirmed, HER2-positive, stage I–IIIA, invasive, operable breast cancer (≥1·5 cm tumour size) with at least one breast lesion evaluable by 18F-FDG-PET, an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status of 0 or 1, and a baseline left ventricular ejection fraction of at least 55%. We randomly assigned participants (1:4), via an interactive response system using central block randomisation with block sizes of five, stratified by hormone receptor status, to either docetaxel (75 mg/m2 intravenous), carboplatin (area under the concentration–time curve 6 mg/mL per min intravenous), trastuzumab (subcutaneous 600 mg fixed dose), and pertuzumab (intravenous 840 mg loading dose, 420 mg maintenance doses; group A); or trastuzumab and pertuzumab (group B). Hormone receptor-positive patients allocated to group B were additionally given letrozole if postmenopausal (2·5 mg/day orally) or tamoxifen if premenopausal (20 mg/day orally). Centrally reviewed 18F-FDG-PET scans were done before randomisation and after two treatment cycles. Patients assigned to group A completed six cycles of treatment (every 3 weeks) regardless of 18F-FDG-PET results. All patients assigned to group B initially received two cycles of trastuzumab and pertuzumab. 18F-FDG-PET responders in group B continued this treatment for six further cycles; 18F-FDG-PET non-responders in this group were switched to six cycles of docetaxel, carboplatin, trastuzumab, and pertuzumab. Surgery was done 2–6 weeks after the last dose of study treatment. Adjuvant treatment was selected according to the neoadjuvant treatment administered, pathological response, hormone receptor status, and clinical stage at diagnosis. The coprimary endpoints were the proportion of 18F-FDG-PET responders in group B with a pathological complete response in the breast and axilla (ypT0/is ypN0) as determined by a local pathologist after surgery after eight cycles of treatment, and 3-year invasive disease-free survival of patients in group B, both assessed by intention to treat. The definitive assessment of pathological complete response was done at this primary analysis; follow-up to assess invasive disease-free survival is continuing, hence these data are not included in this Article. Safety was assessed in all participants who received at least one dose of study drug. Health-related quality-of-life was assessed with EORTC QLQ-C30 and QLQ-BR23 questionnaires at baseline, after two cycles of treatment, and before surgery. This trial is registered with EudraCT (2016-002676-27) and ClinicalTrials.gov ( NCT03161353 ), and is ongoing. Findings Between June 26, 2017, and April 24, 2019, we randomly assigned 71 patients to group A and 285 to group B. Median follow-up was 5·7 months (IQR 5·3–6·0). 227 (80%) of 285 patients in group B were 18F-FDG-PET responders, of whom 86 (37·9%, 95% CI 31·6–44·5; p Interpretation 18F-FDG-PET identified patients with HER2-positive, early-stage breast cancer who were likely to benefit from chemotherapy-free dual HER2 blockade with trastuzumab and pertuzumab, and a reduced impact on global health status. Depending on the forthcoming results for the 3-year invasive disease-free survival endpoint, this strategy might be a valid approach to select patients not requiring chemotherapy. Funding F Hoffmann-La Roche.

Introduction One of the most widely used instruments to identify symptoms that may be related to central sensitization is the Central Sensitization Inventory (CSI). Although this instrument has been translated and validated in Spanish patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain, no psychometric analysis has been carried out in breast cancer survivors. The aim of this study was to perform a psychometric analysis of the Spanish version of the Central Sensitization Inventory (CSI-Sp) in Spanish breast cancer survivors. Materials and methods A validation study was carried out in 183 breast cancer survivors. A psychometric analysis of internal consistency, factor structure, and test-retest reliability of the CSI-Sp was performed. Internal consistency was determined using Cronbach's alpha. Test-retest reliability was evaluated using the Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) Type 2.1. Exploratory factor analysis was used to determine the internal structure of the questionnaire. Results The internal consistency was high (α = 0.91). The test-retest reliability was satisfactory with excellent values (ICC 2.1 = 0.95). The exploratory factor analysis yielded a one factor structure explaining the 33.88% of total variance. Conclusions The CSI-Sp has demonstrated to be a psychometrically strong measure for assessing central sensitization symptoms in breast cancer survivors based on internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and structural validity. Further studies that analyze other measurement properties in different Spanish clinical populations are needed.

Introduction: While pCR has been amply associated with improved treatment outcome in patients treated with NAC and surgery, there are only few studies that explore the molecular determinants of pCR. Given the discrete percentage of patients who achieve pCR after NAC, it is of upmost need to identify biomarkers that can discern between responder and non-responder patients before NAC and therefore determine the best therapeutic approach in advance. Our aim is to find the best combination of variables to predict pCR in our cohort. Patients: To evaluate if there is a gene expression profile that could predict pathological complete response (pCR) to NAC, we selected a cohort of 69 patients treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy consisting of anthracyclines + taxanes; HER2+ patients were further treated with trastuzumab. The median age was 48 years, and 71% of patients were premenopausal. The median of mammographic tumor size was 3,7. Most patients (89%) had invasive ductal carcinoma, and the histological grade was mainly 2 (55,7% Grade 1+2; 44,3% Grade 3). ER and PR positivity were seen in 63% and 53% of cases respectively. HER2 overexpression was seen in 20% of tumors. Methods: Gene expression was evaluated in 770 genes involved in 13 canonical cancer pathways as screened with the nCounter® PanCancer Pathways panel in FFPE pre-treatment tumor biopsies and analyzed with the nSolverTM software. The collected clinical and pathologic variables were age, mammographic tumor size, nodal status, tumor grade, HR status, HER2-overexpression, Ki67 percentage, IHQ subtype and PAM50 subtype. Finally, LASSO regression was used to predict pCR based on normalized gene expression levels and clinical and pathological data. Results: Out of the 69 enrolled patients, 27 achieved pCR (39%) and 42 did not (determined by Miller and Payne criteria). High-quality RNA was isolated from each patient for doing Nanostring nCounter experiment. Based on the gene expression levels of the PanCancer Pathways panel, Lasso regression identified a subset of genes as predictive of pCR. Therefore, the combination of expression levels of DTX3, CACNA1G, IL11, ETV4 and TSPAN7 genes, predicted pCR with an average 70% of Area Under the Curve ROC (AUC) on the test set in a cross-validation scheme. DTX3 is a member of Notch pathway, IL11 from JAK-STAT pathway, CACNA1G from MAPK pathway, ETV4 and TSPAN7 from Transcriptional misregulation pathway. DTX3, CACNA1G and TSPAN7 are down-regulated and IL11 and ETV4 are up-regulated in patients who achieved pCR. Regarding the clinical and pathological data, the best model for predict pCR obtained an 60% of AUC and the selected variables were age, mammographic tumor size, nodal status, tumor grade and Ki67 percentage. Conclusions: In our cohort, the combination of gene expression levels of DTX3, CACNA1G, IL11, ETV4 and TSPAN7 can predict tumor response to NAC even better than any clinical or pathological variable. Although validation in a separate cohort is necessary, our results indicate that this combination could constitute a predictive gene signature to discriminate resistant patients to NAC before the treatment in breast cancer tumors. Citation Format: Maria Rosario Chica-Parrado, Julio Montes-Torres, Cynthia Robles-Podadera, Martina Alvarez, Jose Jerez, Luis Vicioso, Lidia Pérez-Villa, Begoña Jimenez, Nuria Ribelles, Ana Godoy, Isabel Barragán-Mallofret, Emilio Alba. Gene expression levels of DTX3, CACNA1G, IL11, ETV4 and TSPAN7 selected by LASSO penalty regression could predict pCR after neoadjuvant chemotherapy in breast cancer tumors [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2019 Dec 10-14; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2020;80(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P1-10-26.

Background CDK4/6 inhibitors plus endocrine therapies are the current standard of care in the first-line treatment of HR+/HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer, but there are no well-established clinical or molecular predictive factors for patient response. In the era of personalised oncology, new approaches for developing predictive models of response are needed. Materials and methods Data derived from the electronic health records (EHRs) of real-world patients with HR+/HER2-negative advanced breast cancer were used to develop predictive models for early and late progression to first-line treatment. Two machine learning approaches were used: a classic approach using a data set of manually extracted features from reviewed (EHR) patients, and a second approach using natural language processing (NLP) of free-text clinical notes recorded during medical visits. Results Of the 610 patients included, there were 473 (77.5%) progressions to first-line treatment, of which 126 (20.6%) occurred within the first 6 months. There were 152 patients (24.9%) who showed no disease progression before 28 months from the onset of first-line treatment. The best predictive model for early progression using the manually extracted dataset achieved an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.734 (95% CI 0.687–0.782). Using the NLP free-text processing approach, the best model obtained an AUC of 0.758 (95% CI 0.714–0.800). The best model to predict long responders using manually extracted data obtained an AUC of 0.669 (95% CI 0.608–0.730). With NLP free-text processing, the best model attained an AUC of 0.752 (95% CI 0.705–0.799). Conclusions Using machine learning methods, we developed predictive models for early and late progression to first-line treatment of HR+/HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer, also finding that NLP-based machine learning models are slightly better than predictive models based on manually obtained data.

Automatic clinical coding is an essential task in the process of extracting relevant information from unstructured documents contained in electronic health records (EHRs). However, most research in the development of computer-based methods for clinical coding focuses on texts written in English due to the limited availability of medical linguistic resources in languages other than English. With nearly 500 million native speakers, there is a worldwide interest in processing healthcare texts in Spanish. In this study, we systematically analyzed transformer-based models for automatic clinical coding in Spanish. Using a transfer-learning-based approach, the three existing transformer architectures that support the Spanish language, namely, multilingual BERT (mBERT), BETO and XLM-RoBERTa (XLM-R), were first pretrained on a corpus of real-world oncology clinical cases with the goal of adapting transformers to the particularities of Spanish medical texts. The resulting models were fine-tuned on three distinct clinical coding tasks, following a multilabel sentence classification strategy. For each analyzed transformer, the domain-specific version outperformed the original general domain model across those tasks. Moreover, the combination of the developed strategy with an ensemble approach leveraging the predictive capacities of the three distinct transformers yielded the best obtained results, with MAP scores of 0.662, 0.544 and 0.884 on CodiEsp-D, CodiEsp-P and Cantemist-Coding shared tasks, which remarkably improved the previous state-of-the-art performance by 11.6%, 10.3% and 4.4%, respectively. We publicly release the mBERT, BETO and XLMR transformers adapted to the Spanish clinical domain at https://github.com/guilopgar/ClinicalCodingTransformerES, providing the clinical natural language processing community with advanced deep learning methods for performing medical coding and other tasks in the Spanish clinical domain.

Most cancer-related deaths in breast cancer patients are associated with metastasis, a multistep, intricate process that requires the cooperation of tumour cells, tumour microenvironment and metastasis target tissues. It is accepted that metastasis does not depend on the tumour characteristics but the host's genetic makeup. However, there has been limited success in determining the germline genetic variants that influence metastasis development, mainly because of the limitations of traditional genome-wide association studies to detect the relevant genetic polymorphisms underlying complex phenotypes. In this work, we leveraged the extreme discordant phenotypes approach and the epistasis networks to analyse the genotypes of 97 breast cancer patients. We found that the host's genetic makeup facilitates metastases by the dysregulation of gene expression that can promote the dispersion of metastatic seeds and help establish the metastatic niche-providing a congenial soil for the metastatic seeds.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a profound change in health organizations at both the primary and hospital care levels. This cross-sectional study aims to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the annual rate of new cancer diagnosis in two university-affiliated hospitals. This study includes all the patients with a pathological diagnosis of cancer attended in two hospitals in Málaga (Spain) during the first year of pandemic. This study population was compared with the patients diagnosed during the previous year 2019. To analyze whether the possible differences in the annual rate of diagnoses were due to the pandemic or to other causes, the patients diagnosed during 2018 and 2017 were also compared. There were 2340 new cancer diagnosis compared to 2825 patients in 2019 which represented a decrease of −17.2% (p = 0.0001). Differences in the number of cancer patients diagnosed between 2018 and 2019 (2840 new cases, 0.5% increase) or 2017 and 2019 (2909 new cases, 3% increase) were not statistically significant. The highest number of patients lost from diagnosis in 2020 was in breast cancer (−26.1%), colorectal neoplasms (−16.9%), and head and neck tumors (−19.8%). The study of incidence rates throughout the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic shows that the diagnosis of new cancer patients has been significantly impaired. Health systems must take the necessary measures to restore pre-pandemic diagnostic procedures and to recover lost patients who have not been diagnosed.

Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy (NAC) in Breast Cancer (BC) has proved useful for the reduction in tumor burden prior to surgery, allowing for a more extensive breast preservation and the eradication of subjacent micrometastases. However, the impact on prognosis is highly dependent on the establishment of Pathological Complete Response (pCR), in particular for Triple Negative (TN) and Hormonal Receptor negative/Human Epidermal growth factor Receptor 2 positive (HR−/HER2+) subtypes. Several pCR predictors, such as PAM50, Integrative Cluster (IntClust), mutations in PI3KCA, or the Trastuzumab Risk model (TRAR), are useful molecular tools for estimating response to treatment and are prognostic. Major evolution events during BC NAC that feature the Residual Disease (RD) are the loss of HR and HER2, which are prognostic of bad outcome, and stemness and immune depletion-related gene expression aberrations. This dynamic nature of the determinants of response to BC NAC, together with the extensive heterogeneity of BC, raises the need to discern the individual and subtype-specific determinants of resistance. Moreover, refining the current approaches for a comprehensive monitoring of tumor evolution during treatment, RD, and eventual recurrences is essential for identifying new actionable alterations and the integral best management of the disease.

BACKGROUND We aim to compare the benefit of adding pertuzumab (P) to the standard neoadjuvant treatment with trastuzumab (T) in patients (pt) with early immunohistochemically (IHC) defined HER2+ breast cancer (BC) in the different intrinsic molecular subtypes defined by PAM50 gene expression analysis. METHODS Two hundred forty-four pt. with IHC HER2 positive BC, stage I-IIIC, diagnosed in 8 Spanish hospitals were consecutively treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) plus antitargeted HER2 therapy. Cohort A (n=128) received NAC+T and Cohort B (n=116) received NAC+T+P. All the patients were classified into intrinsic molecular subtypes based on the PAM50® signature made in the diagnostic biopsies. Rate of pathologic complete response in breast and axilla (pCR) in the different PAM50 subtypes was compared by ChiSquared and Fisher test. A multivariate logistic regression model was used to analyze the potential effects of the covariates over the pCR rates. RESULTS Characteristics of the patients and intrinsic molecular subtypes are shown in. The overall pCR rate was significantly higher in cohort B vs A (61% vs 39%,p=0,0009). The pCR rate in the HER2E was 50% for T and 75% for T+P (p=0,003) and 11% for T and 42% for T+P (p=0.004) in Luminal subtype. In the multivariate analysis, the improvement pCR rates was highly associated with type of treatment (cohort) (p=0.0015,OR:2.44) and were not related to clinicopathologic covariates (tumor stage, hystological grade, HR) (p>0.05). These results were confirmed for the HER2enriched subtype (p=0.00398,OR:2.94) and even more strongly for Luminals (p=0.0026,OR:13.41). Clinicopathologic and treatment characteristics of patients Trastuzumab+NCT ( groupA, n128)Trastuzumab+pertuzumab+NCT ( groupB, n116)Median age years (range)52 (29-83)50 (30-77)Menopausal Statusn (%)n (%)Pre-menopausal54 (42)54 (47)Post-menupausal49 (38)49 (42)Missing25 (20)13 (11)Histological graden (%)n (%)Grade 12 (2)3 (2)Grade 258 (45)30 (26)Grade 343 (34)44 (38)Grade unknown25 (19)39 834)Ki 67n (%)n (%)50%24 (19)23 (20)Unknown35 (27)3 (2)Hormone receptor statusn (%)n (%)Positive89 (70)71 (61)Negative39 (30)45 (39)Tumor stagen (%)n (%)T123 (18)13 (11)T275 (59)64 (55)T312 (9)26 (22)T410 (8)12 (11)Tx8 (6)1 (1)Clinical node statusn (%)n (%)Negative54 (42)73 (63)Positive74 (58)43 (37)Chemotherapyn (%)n (%)Taxanes9 (7)16 (14)Taxanes and anthracyclines119 (93)100 (86)PAM50 Subtypesn (%)n (%)HER2E88 (69)64 (55)Luminal A16 (12)17 (15)Luminal B19 (15)21 (18)Basal like2 (2)14 (12)Normal like3 (2)0NCT:neoadjuvant chemotherapy CONCLUSIONS: 1.The highest pCR was reached by the PAM50HER2E patients treated with T+P. 2.In Luminal subtype the improvement of pCR is strongly associated with the used of P and this association is independent of clinical covariates. Citation Format: Díaz-Redondo T, Lavado-Valenzuela R, Ribelles N, Pascual T, Galvez F, Falcón A, Alamo MC, Morales C, Amerigo M, Prat A, Alba E. Different pCR rates according PAM50 defined subtypes in HER2 positive early breast cancer treated with neoadjuvant pertuzumab and trastuzumab [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2018 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2018 Dec 4-8; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P3-10-03.

Background Copy Number Alterations (CNAs) represent changes in the copy number of genomic segments of somatic cells due to chromosomal instability. CNAs include gene amplifications or deletions and can be involved in tumorigenesis. We analyzed CNAs data in pre- and post-treatment (ttm) tumors from patients (pts) with early breast cancer (BC) in the neoadjuvant trials GEICAM/2006-03 and GEICAM/2006-14, with the aim to identify CNAs in particular genomic regions (genetic entropy) associated with treatment response. Methods GEICAM/2006-03 (NCT00432172) HER2-negative pts were selectively treated according to clinical subtypes: triple negative (TN) pts were treated with standard anthracycline/taxane -based chemotherapy (AT-CT) +/- carboplatin, while luminal patients were randomized to AT-CT vs. hormonotherapy; GEICAM/2006-14 (NCT00841828) HER2+ pts received AT-CT plus anti-HER2 therapy.Shallow-whole genome Illumina sequencing DNA data from 204 paraffin-embedded tumors (100 pre- and 104 post-ttm) were segmented to obtain CNAs and recurrent altered genomic regions were defined. We used Wilcoxon test to analyze the frequency of altered regions and logistic regression analyses to explore their association with tumor response, in terms of pathological complete response (pCR) in breast and axilla. Validation of altered genes associated with therapy response was performed in the microarray gene expression-based Hatzis dataset (GSE25066) from pts receiving neoadjuvant AT-CT (1). Results A total of 672 regions covering the whole genome were identified upon analysis of CNAs data. Regions were categorized according to their alteration status as amplified, normal and lost. Comparative analysis of alterations revealed 11 regions significantly different (p Conclusions According to our results, neoadjuvant therapy can modulate genomic aberrations landscape in BC. Our data suggest that amplification of specific genes in the genomic locus (21q22.12) is involved in the neoadjuvant therapy response in early BC. (1): Hatzis et al., JAMA 2011, 305(18) 1873-81 Citation Format: Alba E, Rueda OM, Lluch A, Albanell J, Chin S-F, Chacón JI, Calvo L, De la Haba-Rodriguez J, Bermejo B, Ribelles N, Sánchez-Rovira P, Plazaola A, Barnadas A, Cirauqul B, Ramos M, Arcusa A, Carrasco E, Herranz J, Chiesa M, Caballero R, Santonja A, Rojo F, Caldas C. Genome copy number entropy as predictor of response for neoadjuvant therapy in early breast cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2018 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2018 Dec 4-8; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P5-12-03.

INTRODUCTION: Although large randomized trials assessing the benefit of adjuvant trastuzumab in HER2-positive (HER2+) breast cancer have clearly demonstrated a significant improvement in long-term survival, it is necessary to know the impact of the use of trastuzumab adjuvant in the real life population, which includes patients frequently excluded from clinical trials, such as those with very small tumors without node involvement, or advanced age. The objective of this study is to describe the outcomes of women who received adjuvant trastuzumab for HER2+ cáncer since it was approved in 2006, compared with a previous cohort of HER2+ patients not treated with trastuzumab in 7 Spanish centers. METHODS: Women with newly diagnosed stage I-III, HER2+ breast cancer, between 1997 and 2015 were included in the study. Two cohorts were considered: The No-Trastuzumab cohort (No-T), between 1997 and 2005, and the Trastuzumab cohort (T) with trastuzumab-treated women between 2006 and 2015. Kaplan-Meier estimates were used to evaluate DFS and OS. Additionally, cohorts were analyzed by pathologic tumour size, lymph node involvement and hormonal receptor status to stratify outcome measures. RESULTS: A total of 2134 patients were identified. In 164 cases, data were insufficient or the follow-up incomplete. Therefore, the final analysis included 1970 patients, of whom 539 belong to the "No-T" cohort and 1431 to the "T" cohort. The median follow-up was 81 months. Median age: 53 years [22-98]. A total of 699 patients had T1 tumors [43% in the "No-T" cohort vs 33% in the "T" cohort]. 55% of the cases were N0 [58% and 54% in the "No-T" and "T" cohorts respectively]. The status of the hormonal receptors was well balanced between groups [36% ER negative in both]. Regarding the type of adjuvant treatment administered, in the "T" cohort more patients received adjuvant chemotherapy [65% vs 97%] and also in the “T” group combinations of taxanes and anthracyclines were more frequent [14% vs 72%]. The proportion of adjuvant endocrine therapy was similar in both groups [37% vs 34%]. In the “T” cohort, median Disease Free Survival (DFS) was not-reached, compared with 149 months in the “No-T” group. 5-year DFS was 83% vs 65% respectively [p CONCLUSIONS: Adjuvant treatment with Trastuzumab under conditions of real clinical practice in HER2+ early breast cancer, shows a highly significant benefit in terms of DFS and OS, regardless of the stage of the disease or other clinical variables. A very important benefit was reached in patients with small tumors, node-negative disease, or both conditions (T1N0). The benefit was also obtained regardless of the expression of hormonal receptors. Citation Format: Rodriguez CA, Garcia-Gomez J, Ribelles N, Gavila J, Pernas S, Rodriguez-Lescure A, Urrutikoetxea A, Pernaut C, Lopez A, Garcia-Mata J. Impact of the adjuvant treatment with trastuzumab in HER2 positive breast cancer in the real-world setting. Analysis of two cohorts (1997-2005/2006-2015) in 1970 patients [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2018 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2018 Dec 4-8; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P2-13-04.

Capecitabine-induced hand-foot syndrome (CiHFS) is a common dermatological adverse reaction affecting around 30% of patients with capecitabine-treated cancer, and the main cause of dose reductions and chemotherapy delays. To identify novel genetic factors associated with CiHFS in patients with cancer, we carried out an extreme-phenotype genomewide association study in 166 patients with breast and colorectal capecitabine-treated cancer with replication in a second cohort of 85 patients. We discovered and replicated a cluster of four highly correlated single-nucleotide polymorphisms associated with susceptibility to CiHFS at 20q13.33 locus (top hit = rs6129058, hazard ratio = 2.40, 95% confidence interval = 1.78-3.20; P = 1.2 × 10-8 ). Using circular chromosome conformation capture sequencing, we identified a chromatin contact between the locus containing the risk alleles and the promoter of CDH4, located 90 kilobases away. The risk haplotype was associated with decreased levels of CDH4 mRNA and the protein it encodes, R-cadherin (RCAD), which mainly localizes in the granular layer of the epidermis. In human keratinocytes, CDH4 downregulation resulted in reduced expression of involucrin, a protein of the cornified envelope, an essential structure for skin barrier function. Immunohistochemical analyses revealed that skin from patients with severe CiHFS exhibited low levels of RCAD and involucrin before capecitabine treatment. Our results uncover a novel mechanism underlying individual genetic susceptibility to CiHFS with implications for clinically relevant risk prediction.

Background: Several de-escalation approaches are under investigation in patients with HER2-positive early breast cancer (EBC). We assessed early metabolic responses to neoadjuvant trastuzumab and pertuzumab (HP) using 18F-FDG PET/CT (FDG-PET) and the possibility of chemotherapy de-escalation using a response–adapted strategy. Methods: PHERGain is a randomised, open-label phase 2 trial conducted in 45 centres from seven European countries. Patients aged ≥18 years with FDG-PET–evaluable, centrally confirmed HER2-positive EBC were randomly allocated (1:4) to receive docetaxel (T), carboplatin (C), and HP (arm A) or HP±endocrine therapy (arm B). Randomisation was stratified by hormone receptor status. Centrally reviewed FDG-PET was performed with pre-randomisation and after two treatment cycles. Arm A patients completed six cycles regardless of FDG-PET results. Arm B/FDG-PET–responders continued HP±endocrine therapy for six cycles; arm B/FDG-PET–nonresponders switched to six cycles of TCHP. Co-primary endpoints were the percentage of arm B/FDG-PET–responders with pathologic complete response (pCR) in the breast and axilla (ypT0/is ypN0) and 3-year invasive disease-free survival (iDFS) of arm B patients. Findings: Between 26 June 2017 and 24 April 2019, 356 patients were randomly assigned to arm A (n=71) or arm B (n=285). pCR occurred in 41 patients in arm A (57.7%, 95% Confidence Interval (CI) 47.4–69.4%) and 101 in arm B (35.4%, 95% CI 29.9–41.3%). Among arm B patients, 227 (79.6%) were FDG-PET–responders, 86 (37.9%, 95% CI 31.6–44.5%) of whom obtained pCR. No new safety signals were identified. Global health status declined ≥10% in 65.0% and 35.5% of patients in arms A and B, respectively. Interpretation: FDG-PET identified HER2-positive EBC patients likely to benefit from chemotherapy-free dual HER2 blockade with HP and a reduced impact on global health status. Depending on iDFS results, this strategy could select patients not requiring chemotherapy. Trial Registration: This trial is registered with EudraCT (‎2016-002676-27) and ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT03161353). Funding Statement: The study was conceived and designed by Medica Scientia Innovation Research (MEDSIR) in collaboration with F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, which funded the study and provided the study drugs. MEDSIR, as legal sponsor of the study, is responsible for compliance with all clinical and regulatory procedures and adherence to the study protocol. Declaration of Interests: JMP-G reports to have a consulting role for Roche and Lilly, and travel expenses from Roche. GG reports research funding to the Institution from Roche and that an immediate family member received personal fees from Roche outside the submitted work. MRB reports to have a consulting role for Novartis, Pfizer, MSD, and to be part of speaker bureau for Pfizer, Novartis, Roche, Lilly, Astrazeneca. AS reports to have a consulting role for Roche and EISAI, to be part of speaker bureau for Roche and EISAI, expert testimony for ESIAI and Roche, and travel expenses from Roche and Pfizer. BB reports to have a consulting role for Genentech and MSD, to be part of speaker bureau for Genentech, and travel expenses from Pfizer. SE-de-R reports to have a consulting role for Roche, Pierre-Fabre, Eisai, research funding from Synthon and Roche, and travel expenses from Roche, Pierre-Fabre, and Daiichi Sankyo. AP reports honoraria from Pfizer, Novartis, Roche, MSD Oncology, Lilly, Daiichi Sankyo, Amgen, to have a consulting role for Amgen, Roche, Novartis, Pfizer, Brystol-Myers Squibb, Boehringer, PUMA Biotechnology, Oncolytics Biotech, Daiichi Sankyo, Abbvie, NanoString Technologies, research funding to the Institution from Roche, Novartis, Incyte, PUMA Biotechnology, to have intellectual property (PCT/EP2016/080056: HER2 AS A PREDICTOR OF RESPONSE TO DUAL HER2 BLOCKADE IN THE ABSENCE OF CYTOTOXIC THERAPY; WO/2018/096191. Chemoendocrine score (CES) Based on PAM50 for breast cancer with positive hormone receptors with an intermediate risk of recurrence), travel expenses from Daiichi Sankyo, other relationship with Oncolytics, Peptomyc S.L., and that an immediate family member is an employee of Novartis. MC reports to have a consulting role for Pierre-Fabre, Pfizer, OBI Pharma, Celldex, AstraZeneca, and honoraria from Novartis. NA reports to have a consulting role for Pfizer, Novartis, Roche, AstraZeneca, and Lilly, and travel expenses from Pfizer, Novartis, Roche, and AstraZeneca. MS-C reports honoraria from MEDSIR, Syntax for Science, and Nestle, to have a consulting role for MEDSIR, Syntax for Science, and Nestle, to be part of speaker bureau for MEDSIR, Syntax for Science, Roche, research funding from MEDSIR, Syntax for Science, and Roche, and travel expenses from MEDSIR, Syntax for Science, and Roche. AM is a full-time employee of MEDSIR. JC reports to have a consulting role for Roche, Celgene, Cellestia, AstraZeneca, Biothera Pharmaceutical, Merus, Seattle Genetics, Daiichi Sankyo, Erytech, Athenex, Polyphor, Lilly, Servier, Merck Sharp&Dohme, GSK, Leuko, Bioasis, and Clovis Oncology, honoraria from Roche, Novartis, Celgene, Eisai, Pfizer, Samsung Bioepis, Lilly, Merck Sharp&Dohme, and Daiichi Sankyo, research funding to the Institution from Roche, Ariad pharmaceuticals, AstraZeneca, Baxalta GMBH/Servier Affaires, Bayer healthcare, Eisai, F.Hoffman-La Roche, Guardanth health, Merck Sharp&Dohme, Pfizer, Piqur Therapeutics, Puma C, and Queen Mary University of London, and intellectual property for MEDSIR. AL-C reports leadership for Eisai, Celgene, Lilly, Pfizer, Roche, Novartis, and MSD, intellectual property for MEDSIR and Initia-Research, to have a consulting role for Lilly, Roche, Pfizer, Novartis, Pierre-Fabre, GenomicHealth, and GSK, to be part of speaker bureau for Lilly, AstraZeneca, and MSD, research funding from Roche, Foundation Medicine, and Pierre-Fabre, Agendia, and travel expenses from Roche, Lilly, Novartis, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca. LC, NR, NM, CA, FD, and KK have nothing to declare. Ethics Approval Statement: This study was performed in accordance with guidelines of the International Conference on 205 Harmonization and ethical principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki. Written informed 206 consent was obtained before enrolment, and all participants agreed to study-specific procedures. 207 Approvals from appropriate regulatory authorities and ethics committees were obtained.

PurposeHormone receptor (HR)-positive, Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-negative metastatic breast cancer (MBC) requires a therapeutic approach that takes into account multiple factors, with treatment being based on anti-estrogen hormone therapy (HT). As consensus documents are valuable tools that assist in the decision-making process for establishing clinical strategies and optimize the delivery of health services, this consensus document has been created with the aim of developing recommendations on cretiera for hormone sensitivity and resistance in HER2-negative luminal MBC and facilitating clinical decision-making.MethodsThis consensus document was generated using a modification of the RAND/UCLA methodology, which included the definition of the project and identification of issues of interest, a non-exhaustive systematic review of the literature, an analysis and synthesis of the scientific evidence, preparation of recommendations, and external evaluation with a panel of 64 medical oncologists specializing in breast cancer.ResultsA Spanish panel of experts reached consensus on 32 of the 32 recommendations/conclusions presented in the first round and were accepted with an approval rate of 100% about definition of metastatic disease not susceptible to local curative treatment, definition of hormone sensitivity and hormone resistance in metastatic luminal disease and therapeutic decision-making.ConclusionWe have developed a consensus document with recommendations on the treatment of patients with HER2-negative luminal MBC that will help to improve therapeutic benefits.

Germ cell tumors (GCTs) are the most common type of solid tumor amongst patients between 15 and 35 years of age. They are also one of the types of tumor with the highest cure rate, due to their high sensitivity to cisplatin based chemotherapy. Nonetheless, around 15-20% of metastatic patients will not have curative options after a relapse on the first and second line. This proves that new therapeutic options for these refractory GCTs patients need to be developed. This article offers a bibliographic review of all studies using targeted treatment or immunotherapy for refractory GCTs patients.

Summary Background CLEOPATRA was a phase 3 study comparing the efficacy and safety of pertuzumab, trastuzumab, and docetaxel with placebo, trastuzumab, and docetaxel in patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer. In the primary analysis and subsequent reports, progression-free and overall survival were significantly improved in the pertuzumab group compared with the placebo group. Here, we report the end-of-study analysis of CLEOPATRA. Methods This was a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled, phase 3 trial that was done at 204 centres in 25 countries. Eligible patients were 18 years or older, had HER2-positive, metastatic breast cancer, had not received previous chemotherapy or biological treatment for their metastatic disease, and had an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status of 0 or 1. All study drugs were given intravenously, every 3 weeks. Patients were assigned to receive either pertuzumab or placebo at a loading dose of 840 mg, and 420 mg thereafter; plus trastuzumab at 8 mg/kg loading dose and 6 mg/kg thereafter; and docetaxel at 75 mg/m2, escalating to 100 mg/m2 if tolerated. Pertuzumab or placebo and trastuzumab were given until disease progression; docetaxel was given for six cycles, or longer at the investigators’ discretion. Randomisation (1:1) was done by use of an interactive voice-response system and was stratified by geographical region (Asia, Europe, North America, or South America) and previous treatment (previous adjuvant or neoadjuvant chemotherapy vs none). The primary endpoint was independent review facility-assessed progression-free survival, which has been reported previously. Since the confirmatory overall survival analysis had also occurred before this prespecified end-of-study analysis, analyses presented here are descriptive. Overall survival analyses were based on the intention-to-treat population with crossover patients analysed in the placebo group; analyses were not adjusted for crossover to the pertuzumab group and are likely to be conservative. Safety analyses were based on treatment received; crossover patients were counted in the placebo group up to the day before first pertuzumab dose. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov , number NCT00567190 . Findings Between Feb 12, 2008, and July 7, 2010, 1196 patients were assessed for eligibility, of whom 808 were enrolled and randomly assigned. 402 patients were assigned to receive docetaxel plus trastuzumab plus pertuzumab, and 406 patients were assigned to receive docetaxel plus trastuzumab plus placebo. Clinical cutoff for this analysis was Nov 23, 2018. Between July 2012 and clinical cutoff, 50 patients crossed from the placebo to the pertuzumab group. Median follow-up was 99·9 months in the pertuzumab group (IQR 92·9–106·4) and 98·7 months (90·9–105·7) in the placebo group. Median overall survival was 57·1 months (95% CI 50–72) in the pertuzumab group and 40·8 months (36–48) in the placebo group (hazard ratio 0·69, 95% CI 0·58–0·82); 8-year landmark overall survival rates were 37% (95% CI 31–42) in the pertuzumab group and 23% (19–28) in the placebo group. The most common grade 3–4 adverse event was neutropenia (200 [49%] of 408 patients in the pertuzumab group, 183 [46%] of 396 patients in the placebo group). Five (1%) of 408 patients in the pertuzumab group and six (2%) of 396 patients in the placebo group had treatment-related deaths. One new serious adverse event suggestive of congestive heart failure (pertuzumab group) and one new symptomatic left ventricular systolic dysfunction (post-crossover) occurred since the previous analysis. Interpretation Our analysis shows that the previously observed improvements in overall survival with pertuzumab, trastuzumab, and docetaxel versus placebo, trastuzumab, and docetaxel were maintained after a median of more than 8 years of follow-up. The long-term safety and cardiac safety profiles of pertuzumab, trastuzumab, and docetaxel were maintained in the overall safety population and within crossover patients. HER2-targeted therapy has changed the natural history of HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer, with the dual blockade of pertuzumab and trastuzumab, with docetaxel, demonstrating an 8-year landmark overall survival rate of 37%. Funding F Hoffmann-La Roche and Genentech.

Background Pertuzumab combined with trastuzumab and docetaxel is the standard first-line therapy for HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer, based on results from the phase III CLEOPATRA trial. PERUSE was designed to assess the safety and efficacy of investigator-selected taxane with pertuzumab and trastuzumab in this setting. Patients and methods In the ongoing multicentre single-arm phase IIIb PERUSE study, patients with inoperable HER2-positive advanced breast cancer (locally recurrent/metastatic) (LR/MBC) and no prior systemic therapy for LR/MBC (except endocrine therapy) received docetaxel, paclitaxel or nab-paclitaxel with trastuzumab [8mg/kg loading dose, then 6mg/kg every 3weeks (q3w)] and pertuzumab (840mg loading dose, then 420mg q3w) until disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. The primary end point was safety. Secondary end points included overall response rate (ORR) and progression-free survival (PFS). Results Overall, 1436 patients received at least one treatment dose (initially docetaxel in 775 patients, paclitaxel in 589, nab-paclitaxel in 65; 7 discontinued before starting taxane). Median age was 54years; 29% had received prior trastuzumab. Median treatment duration was 16months for pertuzumab and trastuzumab and 4months for taxane. Compared with docetaxel-containing therapy, paclitaxel-containing therapy was associated with more neuropathy (all-grade peripheral neuropathy 31% versus 16%) but less febrile neutropenia (1% versus 11%) and mucositis (14% versus 25%). At this preliminary analysis (52 months' median follow-up), median PFS was 20.6 [95% confidence interval (CI) 18.9–22.7] months overall (19.6, 23.0 and 18.1months with docetaxel, paclitaxel and nab-paclitaxel, respectively). ORR was 80% (95% CI 78%–82%) overall (docetaxel 79%, paclitaxel 83%, nab-paclitaxel 77%). Conclusions Preliminary findings from PERUSE suggest that the safety and efficacy of first-line pertuzumab, trastuzumab and taxane for HER2-positive LR/MBC are consistent with results from CLEOPATRA. Paclitaxel appears to be a valid alternative taxane backbone to docetaxel, offering similar PFS and ORR with a predictable safety profile. ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01572038.

e13040 Background: The treatment of luminal MBC has undergone a substantial change with the use of cyclin dependent kinase 4/6 inhibitors (CDKIs). Nevertheless, there is not a clearly defined subgroup of patients who do not initially respond to CDKIs and show EP. Methods: MBC ER+/HER2- patients who have received at least one line of treatment were eligible. The event of interest was disease progression within 6 months of first line treatment according to the type of therapy administered. The first line treatments were categorized in chemotherapy (CT), hormonal therapy (HT), CT plus maintenance HT and HT plus CDKIs. Free text data from clinical visits registered in our Electronic Health Record were obtained until the date of first treatment in order to generate a feature vector composed of the word frequencies for each visit of every patient. Six different machine learning algorithms were evaluated to predict the event of interest and to obtain the risk of EP for every type of therapy. Area under the ROC curve (AUC), True Positive Rate (TPR) and True Negative Rate (TNR) were assessed using 10-fold cross validation. Results: 610 RE+/HER2- MBC treated between November 1991 and August 2019 were included. Median follow up for metastatic disease was 28 months. 17426 clinical visits were analyzed (per patient: range 1-173; median 30). 119 patients received CT as first line treatment, 311 HT, 117 CT plus maintenance HT and 63 HT plus CDKIs. There were 379 patients with disease progression, from which 126 were within 6 months from first line treatment (54 events with CT, 57 with HT, 4 with CT plus maintenance HT and 11 with HT plus CDKIs). The model that yields the best results was the GLMBoost algorithm: AUC 0.72 (95%CI 0.67-0.77), TPR 70.85% (95%CI 70.63%-71.06%), TNR 66.27% (95% 66.08%-66.46%). Conclusions: Our model based on unstructured data from real-world patients predicts EP and establishes the risk for each of the different types of treatment for MBC ER+/HER2-. Obviously an additional validation is needed, but a tool with these characteristics could help to select the best available treatment when that decision has to be made, avoiding those therapies that are probably not to be effective.

e13035 Background: CDK 4/6 inhibitors plus hormone therapy(HT) has been approved by FDA and EMA for the treatment of hormone receptor positive HER2 negative advanced breast cancer (HR+/HER2-BC) with improvement in PFS consistently demonstrated in several clinical trials. Benefit in OS has also been demonstrated in Monaleesa3 and Monarch2 clinical trials. To date we don`t have real-world data and no single biomarker has been validated to identify subgroups that would benefit most from this new drugs. Methods: This is a multicenter, real life, observational study. From January 2015 to December 2019 we recruited 98 patients with immunohistochemical(IHC) HR+/HER2-BC treated with CDK4-6 inhibitor plus HT. All patients were classified into intrinsic molecular subtypes based on PAM50 signature done centrally in diagnostic/metastatic biopsies. Results: The clinical and treatment characteristic are in table. In IHC studies all population were classified as luminalA (40%) and LuminalB (60%) but we found HER2 enriched patients (6%) defined by PAM50. The median PFS for all population was 14 months and median PFS for Luminal A subtype was 12 months and 15 months for Luminal B with no statistically significant differences between them. Conclusions: Based on the results obtained, the intrinsic molecular subtype defined by PAM50 does not appear to be associated with differences in PFS in our study group. However, a study with a larger number of patients would be necessary. Inhibitors of CDK4/6, have established a central role in the management of HR+/HER2-BC. There is a clear benefit in PFS and OS but we still don’t know which patients will benefit from this therapy and who will not while the side effects such chronic neutropenia, QTC prolongation and diarrhea could have a negative impact on their quality of life. Its mandatory to explore a good biomarker to direct therapy. [Table: see text]

503 Background: Dual trastuzumab plus pertuzumab (HP) has shown promising pathologic complete response (pCR) rates in HER2[+] EBC although lower to CT regimens. Identification of new markers of sensitivity to HP could help to de-escalate CT. PHERGain assessed early metabolic response by F-PET to neoadjuvant HP and the opportunity of CT de-escalation with a response-adapted strategy in patients (pts) with HER2[+] EBC. Methods: PHERGain randomized (1:4 ratio) centrally-confirmed HER2[+] stage I-III EBC pts to receive either docetaxel (T), carboplatin (C), and HP (cohort A) or HP ± endocrine therapy (ET) (cohort B). Randomization was stratified by hormone receptor (HR) status. Pts with subclinical metastases by F-PET were included in a different cohort (cohort C). Centrally-reviewed F-PET was performed prior to randomization and after 2 cycles of TX (cohorts A/B). Cohort A pts completed a total of 6 cycles regardless of F-PET results. Cohort B/PET-responder (RX) pts continued with HP ± ET for 6 cycles, while PET-non-RX pts were switched to receive 6 cycles of TCHP. After surgery, cohort B/PET-RX pts who did not achieve a pCR received 6 cycles of TCHP and all pts from cohorts A/B completed 18 cycles of HP. Cohort C pts received 6 cycles of TCHP. Co-primary endpoints were breast/axilla pCR rate (ypT0/isN0) among cohort B/PET-RX pts and 3-year invasive disease-free survival (iDFS) in pts allocated to cohort B. Results: A total of 376 pts were included (71 pts in cohort A, 285 pts in cohort B, and 20 pts in cohort C). In cohort B, median age was 50 years, 49.2% had node-positive disease, and 67.4% had HR+ tumors. pCR in cohort A was achieved in 41 pts (57.7%, 95% CI 47.4-69.4%) and it was observed in 101 pts included in cohort B (35.4%, 95% CI 29.9-41.3%). Among cohort B pts, 227 (79.6%) were PET-RX; 86 of them (37.9%, 95% CI 31.6-44.5%) obtained a pCR. Among PET-non-RX pts, 15 (25.9%, 95% CI 15.3-39%) achieved a pCR after adding CT (TCHP). PET-RX pCR by HR status was 44.3% for HR[-] and 35% for HR[+] (p = 0.184). The incidence of commonly reported adverse events (AEs) was higher in pts allocated to cohort A (grade≥3 AEs 58.8 vs 12%; serious AEs 29.4 vs 4.6%). The rate of pts with a ≥10% global health status decline in cohorts A and B were 40.8 and 23.5%, respectively. Conclusions: F-PET identify pts with HER2[+] EBC who are more likely to benefit from CT-free dual HER2-blockade with HP. Follow-up is ongoing for iDFS endpoint. Depending on the results of this second co-primary endpoint, this strategy could select a group of HER2[+] EBC pts who would not need CT. Clinical trial information: NCT03161353 .

2042 Background: Lung cancer patients commonly need unplanned visits to ED. Many of these visits could be potentially avoidable if it were possible to identify patients at risk when the previous scheduled visit takes place. At that moment, it would be possible to perform elective actions to manage patients at risk to consult the ED in the near future. Methods: Unplanned visits of patients in active cancer therapy (i.e. chemo or immunotherapy) are attended in our own ED facilities. Our Electronic Health Record (EHR) includes specific modules for first visit, scheduled visits and unplanned visits. Lung cancer patients with at least two visits were eligible. The event of interest was patient visit to ED within 21 or 28 days (d) from previous visit. Free text data collected in the three modules were obtained from EHR in order to generate a feature vector composed of the word frequencies for each visit. We evaluate five different machine learning algorithms to predict the event of interest. Area under the ROC curve (AUC), F1 (harmonic mean of precision and recall), True Positive Rate (TPR) and True Negative Rate (TNR) were assessed using 10-fold cross validation. Results: 2,682 lung cancer patients treated between March 2009 and October 2019 were included from which 819 patients were attended at ED. There were 2,237 first visits, 47,465 scheduled visits (per patient: range 1-174; median 12) and 2,125 unplanned visits (per patient: range 1-20; median 2). Mean age at diagnosis was 64 years. The majority of patients had late stage disease (34.24 % III, 51.56 % IV). The Adaptive Boosting Model yields the best results for both 21 d or 28 d prediction. Conclusions: Using unstructured data from real-world EHR enables the possibility to build an accurate predictive model of unplanned visit to an ED within the 21 or 28 following d after a scheduled visit. Such utility would be very useful in order to prevent ED visits related with cancer symptoms and to improve patients care. [Table: see text]

[Background]: An important proportion of HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer patients do not respond to trastuzumab. The combination of dasatinib and trastuzumab has shown to be synergistic in preclinical models., [Methods]: We conducted a phase II trial combining dasatinib 100 mg once daily with trastuzumab 2 mg/kg and paclitaxel 80 mg/m2 weekly. Primary objective was objective response rate (ORR) and secondary included safety, other efficacy parameters and pharmacodynamics in tumour tissue, blood samples and skin biopsies., [Results]: From June 2013 to December 2015, 29 patients were included. Median number of cycles was 12 (1–49). Only 6 patients discontinued due to adverse events. ORR was 79.3% (95% CI 60.3–92), clinical benefit rate 82.8% (95% CI 64.2–94.2). Median time to progression 23.9 months (95% CI 14.9–not reached [NR]), median progression-free survival 23.9 months (95% CI 10.3–NR). No grade 4 toxicity was seen. Grade 3 toxicities included: ejection fraction decrease, neutropenia, hyponatremia, fatigue and sensory neuropathy and one left ventricular systolic dysfunction. Phosphorylated (p)-SRC was reduced in peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Phosphorylated SRC, ERK and AKT were also reduced in epidermal keratinocytes., [Conclusions]: Dasatinib can be safely combined with trastuzumab and paclitaxel. The combination is active with an ORR of almost 80%. Trial registration: NCT01306942, EudraCT 2010-023304-27., The study was financially supported by Bristol-Myers Squibb which also supplied the dasatinib.

Background: Prosigna's ROR score was demonstrated as a strong predictor of response to NAC in a representative cohort of EBC patients including HR+/HER2- N0-N1 patients.1 Given that the ROR score is partially derived from the correlation of the tumor's expression profile to that of the four prototypical intrinsic subtypes, we determined the relative strength of the association between each subtype correlation and the likelihood of response to NAC. Methods: We analyzed 294 FFPE breast cancer samples from pts treated with NAC (anthracyclines and taxanes) in a multi-center Spanish cohort. The Prosigna Assay was performed on the NanoString nCounter® Dx Analysis System at HU Virgen de la Victoria de Málaga/CIMES-UMA. Pathologic complete response (pCR) was used as the primary endpoint for this study and was determined using the Miller and Payne scoring criteria. Results: Mean patient age in this population was 50 (±11yr). Apart from targeted therapy, all patients received a standard neoadjuvant treatment regimen consisting of 8-12 cycles of anthracyclines and taxanes. 58% of patients were HR+/HER2- while 24% were classified as HER2+ and 18% were TNBC patients. Of the 311 pts samples previously tested, subtype correlation data was available for 294. Overall subtype concordance between IHC and Prosigna was 72% (K=0.66). The overall pCR rate in this population was 24.9%. Prosigna subtype breakdown in the full study population was 60 Luminal A, 118 Luminal B, 69 HER2-enriched and 47 Basal-like with response rates of 7.2%, 7.2%, 46.2% and 57.4%, respectively. We found that in all study populations, subtype correlation was a strong predictor of response to NAC. Tumors with expression profiles that correlated well with the Luminal prototypical centroids were found to be largely unresponsive to NAC (Luminal A Odds ratio=0.074 per unit increase, p 1Rodriguez B, Lavado Fernandez A, Ribelles N, et al. Prosigna (PAM50) to predict response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) in HR+/HER2- early breast cancer (EBC) patients. J Clin Oncol 33, 2015 (suppl; abstr 11049). Citation Format: Chica Parrado R, Jiménez-Rodríguez B, Sánchez Rovira P, Álvarez M, Vicioso L, Fernandez AI, de Luque V, José Lozano M, Villar E, Zarcos I, Ramírez C, González-Hermoso C, Jeiranian A, Dowidar N, Schaper C, Buckingham W, Ferree S, Ribelles N, Rodrigo I, Prat AP, Alba E. Prosigna® subtype correlation is a strong predictor of response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) in early breast cancer (EBC) study. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Thirty-Eighth Annual CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium: 2015 Dec 8-12; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P3-07-15.

Background: The role of the HER2-enriched (HER2E) subtype determined by the Prosigna Assay in the neoadjuvant setting has remained largely uncharacterized. In this study, we examine whether Prosigna can identify a subgroup of HER2+ patients for whom combination neoadjuvant therapy that includes trastuzumab (Herceptin) is associated with a greater likelihood of pathological complete response (pCR). Methods: In this single-arm retrospective analysis, 75 patients determined to be HER2+ by IHC were treated with a neoadjuvant regimen (NAC) consisting of 8-12 cycles of anthracyclines and taxanes as well as Herceptin. The Prosigna Assay was performed on the NanoString nCounter® Dx Analysis System at HU Virgende la Victoria de Málaga/CIMES-UMA. pCR was used as the endpoint for this study and was determined using the Miller & Payne scoring criteria. Results: Mean patient age for this study population was 49 (±11.1yr) and all patients were determined to be HER2+ by IHC. The overall pCR rate in this patient population was 46.2%. Of the 75 patient samples analyzed for this study, 59 (78.6%) were HER2E, 4 (5.3%) were Luminal A and 12 (16.1%) were Luminal B, as identified by the Prosigna Assay. Of the 16 tumors classified as Luminal (A or B) by Prosigna within this HER2+ population, only 2 (12.5%) responders were observed. Categorical analysis revealed that Prosigna subtype predicted response to a NAC regimen combined with Herceptin (Odds ratio [Her2E vs. non-Her2E]=6.4, p=0.023). Further analysis of the Her2E subtype revealed that tumors with profile expression that correlated well with the prototypical Her2E centroid were significantly more likely to respond to combination NAC and Herceptin (Odds ratio [Unit increase of 1 in Her2E correlation]=88.2, p=0.004). Conclusions: The results of this study indicate that HER2+ patients with greater correlations to the HER2E subtype have an increased likelihood of response to combination neoadjuvant regimens that included HER2-targeted therapy. Citation Format: Santonja Á, Ribelles N, Jiménez-Rodríguez B, Sánchez Rovira P, Álvarez M, Vicioso L, Isabel Fernandez A, de Luque V, Fernández de Sousa C, Villar E, Zarcos I, Ramírez C, González-Hermoso C, Jeiranian A, Dowidar N, Schaper C, Buckingham W, Ferree S, Jiménez A, Prat A, Alba E. Prosigna® intrinsic subtyping predicts response to neoadjuvant combination therapy in study that includes herceptin within HER2+ (IHC) patients. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Thirty-Eighth Annual CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium: 2015 Dec 8-12; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P3-07-14.

Purpose: Most hormone receptor (HR)+/HER2− breast cancer patients respond unfavorably to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC); however, genomic tests may identify those patients who are likely to benefit. Using the Prosigna assay, we first evaluated the technical performance of core needle biopsy (CNB) tissues. We then determined whether Prosigna risk of relapse (ROR) score and intrinsic subtype predicted response to NAC in HR+/HER2− patients using CNB samples. Experimental Design: Using the NanoString's nCounter Dx analysis system and a development tissue sample set, we established tissue requirements and assay output variance. We then evaluated the concordance in subtype and correlation in ROR between CNBs and corresponding surgical resection specimens (SRS) in a second independent sample set. Finally, we analyzed 180 independent CNB samples from HR+/HER2− patients who were treated with NAC and correlated ROR and intrinsic subtype with pathologic response. Results: Intra- and interbiopsy variabilities were 2.2 and 6.8 ROR units, respectively. Subtype concordance within multiple CNBs was high for the 4- and 3-subtype classifications (k = 0.885 and 0.889, respectively). Correlation in Prosigna ROR score observed between paired CNBs and SRS was high (r ≥ 0.90), and subtype concordance was also high for the 4- and 3-subtype classifications (kappa = 0.81 and 0.91, respectively). Prosigna results obtained from the HR+/HER2− patient samples showed that both ROR (P = 0.047) and intrinsic subtype (OR LumA vs. non-LumA = 0.341, P = 0.037) were significant predictors of response to NAC. Conclusions: Prosigna ROR and intrinsic subtype are readily obtained from CNB samples in normal practice and reliably predict response to NAC in HR+/HER2− patients. Clin Cancer Res; 22(3); 560–6. ©2015 AACR.