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Nexavar® May Overcome Resistance to Arimidex® in Breast CancerResearchers from Georgetown University have reported that the addition of Nexavar® (sorafenib) to Arimidex® (anastrozole) helps restore sensitivity to Arimidex among women with breast cancer. These results were recently presented at the 2008 annual American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) breast cancer symposium.
Arimidex is a hormone therapy that prevents the formation of estrogen in the body. It is commonly used among postmenopausal women with hormone-positive breast cancer. Unfortunately, some women can become resistant to Arimidex and others may never respond to Arimidex. Reasons for this lack of response are not clear. Researchers continue to evaluate ways to work around this resistance, such as targeting other biologic pathways associated with cancer.
Nexavar is an orally active, multi-kinase inhibitor approved for the treatment of advanced renal cell carcinoma and inoperable hepatocellular carcinoma. Nexavar is also being evaluated in patients with other cancers, including non–small cell lung cancer and melanoma. Used alone, Nexavar has not demonstrated activity for the treatment of breast cancer; however, researchers have speculated that Nexavar may aid in reversing the resistance to Arimidex or other hormone agents.
Researchers from Georgetown University recently conducted a clinical trial to explore the potential effectiveness of the combination of Nexavar and Arimidex in the treatment of advanced breast cancer that has stopped responding to Arimidex. This trial included 27 postmenopausal women with hormone-positive breast cancer who had no more than two prior chemotherapy regimens for their disease and who had stopped responding to prior therapy with Arimidex.
- Over 26% of patients achieved a partial response or stabilization of their cancer for at least six months.
- A reduction in endothelial cells in the circulating blood during the first week of treatment predicted a response to therapy.
The researchers concluded that the addition of Nexavar to Arimidex may help overcome resistance to Arimidex in postmenopausal women with hormone-positive advanced breast cancer.
Comments: Ultimately, these results support the idea that targeted therapies may be able to restore sensitivity to certain effective therapies in several types of cancers. Future trials further evaluating this approach are warranted.
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