Howard A. “Skip” Burris, III, MD, FASCO, FACP, chief medical officer, president, Clinical Operations, Sarah Cannon Research Institute, and a 2014 Giant of Cancer Care® in Drug Development, discusses the integration of sacituzumab govitecan-hziy (Trodelvy) into the treatment landscape of metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC).

Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), such as sacituzumab govitecan, which targets the TROP-2 receptor and harbors a cytotoxic payload linked to SN-38, have demonstrated significant efficacy in patients with metastatic TNBC, Burris says. The FDA granted an accelerated approval to the ADC in April 2020 based on data from a phase 1/2 trial (NCT01631552) of sacituzumab govitecan in patients with metastatic TNBC. In April 2021, the FDA granted a regular approval to the agent based on confirmatory data from the randomized phase 3 ASCENT trial (NCT02574455), where sacituzumab govitecan outperformed physician’s choice of single-agent treatments in this patient population, Burris explains.

Moreover, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network guidelines include sacituzumab govitecan as a recommended treatment for patients with metastatic TNBC who have received 2 or more prior systemic therapies, at least 1 of them for metastatic disease, Burris adds. Overall, the ADC is quickly becoming a standard of care option early in the treatment of patients with metastatic TNBC, Burris concludes.

Videos

Howard A. “Skip” Burris, III, MD, FASCO, FACP, discusses the integration of sacituzumab govitecan-hziy into the treatment landscape of metastatic triple-negative breast cancer. 


Dr. Burris on the Integration of Sacituzumab Govitecan in Metastatic TNBC 

We had the pleasure of sitting down with Howard A. Burris, MD, also known as Skip, is the president of clinical operations and chief medical officer of Sarah Cannon Research Institute, as well as an associate of Tennessee Oncology. Not only is he a 2014 Giant of Cancer Care® in Drug Development, Dr Burris is also the elected president of ASCO for 2019 to 2020.

He has led a number of research endeavors and has been a part of the development of several agents now available for breast cancer treatment, such as ado-trastuzumab emtansine, everolimus, and gemcitabine.

In our exclusive interview, Dr. Burris spent time discussing how he wound up in the oncology space, his passion for getting to know and helping his patients, and some of his proudest moments throughout his monumental career, which includes his time as president of ASCO.

Podcasts

Howard A. Burris, MD, also known as "Skip," of Sarah Cannon Research Institute, discussed how he wound up in the oncology space, his passion for getting to know and helping his patients, and some proud moments throughout his monumental career.

Howard "Skip" Burris, MD: A Passion for Befriending Patients and Always Being Kind

Howard A. "Skip" Burris, MD, president of Clinical Operations and chief medical officer at Sarah Cannon Research Institute, discusses updated findings from the MONALEESA-2 trial, which explored first-line treatment with ribociclib plus letrozole in patients with hormone receptor (HR)-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer.

View more from the 2016 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium

Dr. Burris on Updated MONALEESA-2 Trial Results for HR+ Breast Cancer

Howard A. “Skip” Burris, MD, president of Clinical Operations and chief medical officer at Sarah Cannon Research Institute, a 2014 Giant of Cancer Care in Drug Development, discusses the biggest remaining challenges in treating patients with HER2-positive breast cancer.

The treatment of patients with HER2-positive breast cancer has evolved since the early days of Burris' career, he explains. The approvals of agents such as trastuzumab (Herceptin), lapatinib (Tykerb), and pertuzumab (Perjeta) have led researchers to wonder whether this subtype could be defined as a curable malignancy.

However, a troublesome area in HER2-positive breast cancer, Burris says, is the fact that brain metastases frequently develop in patients with advanced disease. Therefore, patients usually receive multiple therapies—most of which do not cross the blood-brain barrier. Because of this, Burris prefers to administer the majority of treatment in the neoadjuvant setting, which can shrink tumor size and target cancer cells in the blood stream and lymph nodes.

Howard A. "Skip" Burris, MD

Articles

Dr. Burris on the Integration of Sacituzumab Govitecan in Metastatic TNBC

Howard "Skip" Burris, MD: A Passion for Befriending Patients and Always Being Kind

Dr. Burris on Updated MONALEESA-2 Trial Results for HR+ Breast Cancer

Dr. Burris on Remaining Challenges in Treating HER2+ Breast Cancer