MIAMI BEACH – Hormonal ablation is a mainstay of therapy for women with hormone receptor–positive breast cancer. A significant proportion of patients, however, are either initially refractory to hormonal therapy or acquire resistance to it over time.
The difficulty for patients with breast cancer and for the physicians who treat them is that there are no simple answers to the question of which patients can continue to benefit from endocrine monotherapy. Are there adequate biomarkers for optimal follow-on therapy when a patient experiences disease progression, and what is the optimal sequence of targeted therapy with endocrine inhibitors, disrupters, or other agents?
In a video interview at the annual Miami Breast Cancer Conference, held by Physicians’ Education Resource, William J. Gradishar, MD, of Northwestern University, Chicago, discusses strategies for combating resistance to endocrine ablative therapy, and describes how new therapies and new treatment strategies are being incorporated into National Comprehensive Cancer Network breast cancer guidelines.
Dr. Gradishar reported having no clinical disclosures.