Verzenio For Early Stage Breast Cancer
- Verzenio is a CDK4/CDK6 inhibitor which helps slow down cancer in women with HR+, HER2- metastatic breast cancer
- A major clinical trial found that Verzenio significantly cut the risk of reccurrence in women with early stage breast cancer
- Due to these findings, a leading expert tells SurvivorNet that oncologists may be adding Verzenio as a treatment option for early stage breast cancer patients
“This is an important study because it showed that women with early breast cancer who are at significantly high risk for metastasis had a benefit, meaning improvement in invasive disease free survival,” says Dr. Elizabeth Comen, a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. “We are always looking for ways to improve outcomes for early stage breast cancer patients and it means that we may be adding Verzenio to our arsenal.”
Read MoreThe Specific Features of Breast Cancers That Can be Treated with Verzenio
HR-positive women have both estrogen and progesterone receptors which are often treated with hormone therapies but there’s a chance the cancer will return. HER-2 is a growth-promoting protein on the outside of all breast cells, and women who are HER-2 negative do not respond to hormone therapies or drugs that target HER2.
Dr. Elizabeth Comen explains the main aspects of early stage breast cancer
How Do CDK4/CDK6 Inhibitors Work For Breast Cancer?
CDK4/CDK6 inhibitors are targeted therapies which attack proteins known as the cyclin-dependent kinases 4 and 6 (CDK4/CDK6). These proteins control how quickly cells divide and multiply, and for women with breast cancer these proteins can cause cancer cells to grow uncontrollably. That’s where CDK4/CDK6 inhibitors come in, where they slow down or stop the proteins from multiplying.
“So, what we know about CDK4/CDK6 inhibitors is that for women with metastatic, estrogen receptor-positive, HER-2 negative breast cancer, CDK4/CDK6 inhibitors can improve what we call progression-free survival,” Dr. Comen says in a separate interview. “Progression-free survival means how long they live before the cancer comes back.”
Dr. Elizabeth Comen explains how CDK4/CDK6 inhibitors help fight metastatic breast cancer
Verzenio Beating The Competition
The findings from this latest Verzenio clinical trial are especially significant due because it is the first CDK4/CDK6 inhibitor to show significant decrease in reoccurrence, unlike competitors Ibrance (palbociclib) and Kisqali (ribociclib).
Related: Hopeful News for Breast Cancer: A New Drug Combination to Extend Survival Time
In a prior phase 3 trial, studies didn’t support that Ibrance (when combined with endocrine therapy) prolonged the amount of time before a reoccurrence in the early stage breast cancers targeted. However, the Verzenio and Ibrance clinical trials were different. In the Ibrance trial, they studied women who were moderate to high risk of recurrence, as opposed to the Verzenio trial which solely looked at high risk women.
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