Recent and Upcoming Advances in Breast Cancer Treatment

Several new treatment options for patients with breast cancer have emerged over the last few years, including more oral medications like trastuzumab deruxtecan (Enhertu) and pembrolizumab (Keytruda), and radiation during surgery, according to an expert.

Oncology Nursing News spoke with Erica S. Doubleday, MS, FNP-C, BSN, RN, Director of APPs Oncology Service Line Hematology and Medical Oncology at Ochsner Health System, about FDA approvals for oncology care providers to expect and other innovations in cancer care.

Switching treatment paths like CDK4/6 inhibitors and more oral medications can lead to both longer survival and fewer appointments with providers, as Doubleday noted. Integrating immunotherapy into management can lead to better outcomes for patients with triple-negative breast cancer in the adjuvant setting.

Transcript:

I think we're going to continue to see approvals with Enhertu. The other thing that I find really exciting is we're working on more and more oral medications for these patients who are metastatic, like your [CDK4/6] inhibitors.

I think we're going to continue to see more and more orals in that setting. We already have some for your ESR1 mutations and your PI3K mutations.…They are living so much longer with metastatic breast cancer. Giving them their option to not have to come see us like every 3 weeks would be huge. Nobody wants to come see us every 3 weeks, indefinitely.

… I love that they are going through to see that the [CDK4/6] inhibitors, if you are not successful with one, that we can transition to another, and we may see some more long-term survival. I also love that they're trying more than just the abemaciclib (Verzenio) in the early-stage reoccurrence. So Kisqali now, or ribociclib now, has that approval in the early stage, high risk for a reoccurrence.

I think all of these things are very exciting for our patients. And then one of the new things, it's been a few years now, but really introducing immunotherapy into the breast cancer world with the use of pembrolizumab in our triple negatives. We have taken it off label a couple of times and used it in triple negatives that maybe have reoccurred or that we have sent to surgery first, and we are using it in the adjuvant setting, and patients are doing great with it. So I think we're going to see a lot more approval for pembrolizumab in terms of triple negative in the adjuvant setting as well coming up.

And then there's some cool things going on with surgery and radiation, doing some radiation while getting surgery—the consolidation of the dose and radiation. We're now seeing women going from 6 weeks of radiation to 3 weeks of radiation, which, again, is huge. They're still getting the same dose, but now they only have to come 15 days instead of 30 days, which is such a game changer, especially as we see, at least in the south, we're seeing a lot of younger women being diagnosed with breast cancer.

This transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness.