Dr. Slamon on the Phase III Results of MONALEESA-3 Trial in HR+/HER2- Breast Cancer

Dennis J. Slamon, MD, PhD, director, Clinical/Translational Research, Revlon/University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Women's Cancer Research Program, Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, UCLA, discusses findings of the phase III MONALEESA-3 trial evaluating ribociclib (Kisqali) plus fulvestrant (Faslodex) in postmenopausal women with hormone receptor (HR)-positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer. Slamon discussed these results in an interview with OncLive during the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting.

MONALEESA-3 was conducted in nearly 730 patients with HR-positive, HER2-negative postmenopausal disease, explains Slamon. The study is unique in that eligible patients were those who did not receive endocrine therapy, as well as those in the first- or second-line setting. Therefore, patients were being treated with the combination of ribociclib and fulvestrant earlier in their lines of treatment.

The results showed that there was a significant improvement in progression-free survival (PFS) for those who received the combination compared with fulvestrant alone, Slamon concluded. The median PFS at the time of data cut-off was 20.5 months in patients randomized to ribociclib versus 12.8 months in those randomized to placebo; this represented a 41% reduction in the risk of disease progression.

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