Dr. Robson on Exploratory Analysis From OlympiAD in Breast Cancer

Mark E. Robson, MD, chief, Breast Medicine Service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses an exploratory analysis of the OlympiAD trial for patients with HER2-negative breast cancer with a germline BRCA1/2 mutation. Robson highlighted these findings in an interview with OncLive during the 35th Annual Miami Breast Cancer Conference.

OlympiAD was a randomized phase III trial of olaparib compared with conventional chemotherapy in patients with HER2-negative breast cancer who harbored BRCA1/2 mutations. Results showed that there was a statistically improvement in progression-free survival (PFS). Preservation of quality of life is also seen across subsets, Robson says.

One question following the study, he explained, was whether patients have more of a benefit with olaparib if they have more disease versus less disease. In the exploratory analysis, researchers investigated the PFS in patients who had 1 metastatic site versus more than 1 site. Findings showed that there were similar degrees of benefit in each group.

In those with 1 metastatic site, the median PFS with olaparib was 8.4 months compared with 4.2 months with physician's choice of therapy (TPC; HR, 0.62; 95% CI, 0.35-1.13). In patients with ≥2 metastatic sites, the median PFS was 6.5 months with olaparib compared with 3.0 months for TPC, which crossed the barrier for statistical significance (HR, 0.59; 95% CI, 0.43-0.82).

These data show that patients with more disease burden do not need to receive chemotherapy and can still be treated with a PARP inhibitor, Robson concludes.

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