Dr. Aebi on Adjuvant Chemo in Recurrent Breast Cancer

Stefan Aebi, MD, head of the division of medical oncology at Luzerner Kantonsspital in Luzern, Switzerland, discusses findings from the CALOR trial that examined the administration of adjuvant chemotherapy for women with resected isolated local or regional recurrence (ILRR) of breast cancer that had not developed distant metastasis.

The standard treatment option for patients with ILRR is surgery and radiation therapy, Aebi notes. Prior to this trial, the efficacy of administering adjuvant chemotherapy had not been validated.

In this trial, 162 patients were evenly stratified based on whether they had or had not received prior chemotherapy, their hormone receptor status, and the location of the recurrence. Patients on the investigational arm received 4 courses of the physician's choice of chemotherapy while the control arm received the standard of care.

The trial found that adjuvant chemotherapy reduced the incidence of further relapses and the risk of dying from breast cancer, states Aebi. At a median follow up of 4.9 years, the overall survival rate for patients receiving adjuvant chemotherapy was 88% versus 76% in the control arm (HR = 0.41; P = .02).

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