HER2 Support Group Forums - View Single Post - Question about Zoladex & Arimidex, but no chemo or herceptin

Lani · 04-14-2007, 09:27 AM

The third abstract presented today also looked 207 HER2 positive breast cancer patients with hormone-dependant metastatic disease, evaluating whether Herceptin (trastuzumab) prolongs progression free survival (PFS). Overall survival (OS) was a secondary endpoint of the trial. Half of the patients were treated with Arimidex (anastrozole) alone, half were treated with Arimidex plus Herceptin. Patients on Arimidex plus Herceptin had 4.8 months of PFS, compared to 2.4 months for patients who received Arimidex alone, and the difference was statistically significant. Overall survival was prolonged in the patients on the combination therapy, but the data on OS were not statistically significant. Side effects were worse on patients who were treated with Herceptin plus Arimidex. In both arms of this trial, time to treatment response was 2 months, and median duration of treatment response was 10 months.

None of these trials was large enough to generate truly meaningful results. In addition, all three of these trials had worthless endpoints. Time to progression (TTP) and progression free survival (PFS) are pretty much meaningless markers for patients. What patients need to know is whether the drug will improve their chances of survival, and for how long. And TTP or PFS don’t necessarily tell patients anything meaningful about survival data. This is pretty clearly from information that Dr. Mackey presented in the Herceptin trial described in Abstract 3. In an unplanned subgroup analysis, patients without liver metastases had better OS on combined therapy (41.3 months) than on Arimidex alone (32.1 months). But the TTP for this group of patients was twice as good (7.7 months) on combined therapy than on Arimidex alone (3.8 months).
^^^^^^^^^^^
The above is not in my words and reflects results for metastatic, not small early breast cancer. Jean had a similar story ie, small her2+ER+ tumor, but had a "highish" recurrence score by oncoDX and flew from NY to California to meet with Dr. Slamon. Perhaps she could relate what he told her.

Hope this helps

04-14-2007, 09:27 AM	#6
Lani Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 4,780	from day one San Antonio meeting summary--NOT in MY words The third abstract presented today also looked 207 HER2 positive breast cancer patients with hormone-dependant metastatic disease, evaluating whether Herceptin (trastuzumab) prolongs progression free survival (PFS). Overall survival (OS) was a secondary endpoint of the trial. Half of the patients were treated with Arimidex (anastrozole) alone, half were treated with Arimidex plus Herceptin. Patients on Arimidex plus Herceptin had 4.8 months of PFS, compared to 2.4 months for patients who received Arimidex alone, and the difference was statistically significant. Overall survival was prolonged in the patients on the combination therapy, but the data on OS were not statistically significant. Side effects were worse on patients who were treated with Herceptin plus Arimidex. In both arms of this trial, time to treatment response was 2 months, and median duration of treatment response was 10 months. None of these trials was large enough to generate truly meaningful results. In addition, all three of these trials had worthless endpoints. Time to progression (TTP) and progression free survival (PFS) are pretty much meaningless markers for patients. What patients need to know is whether the drug will improve their chances of survival, and for how long. And TTP or PFS don’t necessarily tell patients anything meaningful about survival data. This is pretty clearly from information that Dr. Mackey presented in the Herceptin trial described in Abstract 3. In an unplanned subgroup analysis, patients without liver metastases had better OS on combined therapy (41.3 months) than on Arimidex alone (32.1 months). But the TTP for this group of patients was twice as good (7.7 months) on combined therapy than on Arimidex alone (3.8 months). ^^^^^^^^^^^ The above is not in my words and reflects results for metastatic, not small early breast cancer. Jean had a similar story ie, small her2+ER+ tumor, but had a "highish" recurrence score by oncoDX and flew from NY to California to meet with Dr. Slamon. Perhaps she could relate what he told her. Hope this helps