According to a panel of specialists at the Advanced Breast Cancer Sixth International Consensus Conference, patients with two of the three most frequent kinds of advanced breast cancer now have an average survival period of at least five years (ABC 6).
The survival time for most advanced breast cancers has doubled
Breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body (metastasized or advanced breast cancer) is more difficult to treat, and typical survival durations have been poor as a result. However, more study on advanced breast cancer (ABC) has been done in the previous ten years, which means doctors now know a lot more about how to treat the disease. This can prove useful to the patients as well because they can have better chances of survival.
Experts indicated that more effort is needed to identify treatments that are beneficial for the third type of ABC (called triple-negative ABC), where average survival times remain lower during a session agreeing on new recommendations for treating advanced breast cancer.
Because its growth is stimulated by the hormone estrogen, the most prevalent subtype of ABC is known as hormonal-dependent or estrogen-receptor-positive (ER+). Another subtype is HER2+, which occurs when cancer cells produce too much of a protein called HER2, which promotes cell development.
The median survival for these two subtypes of ABC, which together account for 85 percent of patients, has increased from one or two years to five years in the last decade. This means that more than 50% of patients with these tumors may live for more than five years, with some perhaps living for ten.
Because it is not fueled by estrogen and does not overproduce HER2, the third subtype, known as triple-negative cancer, has fewer therapy options, and patients have a lower survival rate. In the last few years, there has been renewed optimism for this subtype, with two novel treatments showing some promise in terms of survival.
Experts agree that patients with this subtype should have access to these novel treatments, Sacituzumab govitecan, and anti-PD-L1 therapies, particularly pembrolizumab, according to the updated ABC 6 guidelines.
The ABC Global Alliance and the Advanced Breast Cancer Conferences have set a goal of doubling patient survival by 2025, which is outlined in the ABC Global Charter. Professor Fatima Cardoso, Director of the Breast Unit of the Champalimaud Cancer Centre in Lisbon, Portugal, and Chair of the ABC 6 Conference and the ABC Global Alliance, said: “We have made a major step towards our goal of doubling average survival times for patients because we have now achieved this in two out of three subtypes of advanced breast cancer.”
The Advanced Breast Cancer International Consensus Conferences have been gathering every two years for a decade, sharing and discussing the most recent research on ABC and updating international guidelines on how to effectively treat patients. In early 2022, the new guidelines from this year’s summit will be published.
“A decade ago, there was a severe paucity of data on how to aid patients with advanced breast cancer, so we had to rely on expert opinion for the majority of our recommendations.”
“We’ve worked hard to rally the scholarly community around this issue over the last ten years, and we’ve achieved significant progress. As a result, most of our recommendations for treating ABC this year are now based on the highest degree of scientific evidence available, known as level 1.
This is fantastic news for patients because they can be assured that the treatments they receive are based on the most up-to-date research and will keep them healthy for longer.”
