BackgroundOffering ovarian function and/or fertility preservation strategies in premenopausal women with newly diagnosed breast cancer candidates to undergo chemotherapy is standard of care. However, few data are available on uptake and main reasons for refusing these options.MethodsThe PREFER study (NCT02895165) is an observational, prospective study enrolling premenopausal women with early breast cancer, aged between 18 and 45 years, candidates to receive (neo)adjuvant chemotherapy. Primary objective is to collect information on acceptance rates and reasons for refusal of the proposed strategies for ovarian function and/or fertility preservation available in Italy.ResultsAt the study coordinating center, 223 patients were recruited between November 2012 and December 2020. Median age was 38 years (range 24 – 45 years) with 159 patients (71.3%) diagnosed at ≤40 years. Temporary ovarian suppression with gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonists (GnRHa) was accepted by 58 out of 64 (90.6%) patients aged 41-45 years and by 151 out of 159 (95.0%) of those aged ≤40 years. Among patients aged ≤40 years, 57 (35.8%) accepted to access the fertility unit to receive a complete oncofertility counseling and 29 (18.2%) accepted to undergo a cryopreservation technique. Main reasons for refusal were fear of delaying the initiation of antineoplastic treatments and contraindications to the procedure or lack of interest in future childbearing. Patients with hormone-receptor positive breast cancer had a tendency for a higher acceptance rates of ovarian function and/or fertility preservation strategies than those with hormone-receptor negative disease.ConclusionsMore than 90% of premenopausal women with early breast cancer, and particularly those with hormone receptor-positive disease, were concerned about the potential risk of chemotherapy-induced premature ovarian insufficiency and/or infertility and accepted GnRHa administration. Less than 1 out of 5 women aged ≤40 years accepted to undergo cryopreservation strategies.
Objectives To better understand the type of care offered to Italian patients with advanced breast cancer at the End-of-Life (EoL), we conducted a retrospective observational study. EoL was defined as the period of six months before death. Methods One hundred and twenty-one patients with advanced breast cancer (ABC) treated at IRCCS San Martino Policlinic Hospital who died between 2017 and 2021 were included. Data about patient, disease, and treatment characteristics from breast cancer diagnosis to death, along with information about comorbidities, medications, imaging, specialist evaluations, hospitalization, palliative care and home care, hospice admissions, and site of death were collected. Results 98.3% of the patients received at least one line of active treatment at EoL; 52.8% were hospitalized during the selected period of time. Palliative (13.9%), psychological (7.4%), and nutritional evaluations (8.2%) were underutilized. Palliative home care was provided to 52% of the patients. Most of the patients died at home (66.1%) and fewer than one out of five (18.2%) died at the hospital. Among the patients who died at home, 27.3% had no palliative support. Conclusions Our findings indicate that palliative care in EoL breast cancer patients is still inadequate. Only a minority of patients did access to Psychological and nutritional support While low nutritional support may be explained by the fact that typical symptoms of ABC do not involve the gastrointestinal tract, the lack of psychological support suggests that significant barriers still exist. Data on the site of death are encouraging, indicating that EoL management is increasingly home-centered in Italy.
Background The identification of treatment selection biomarkers for advanced triple negative breast cancer (aTNBC) patients remains an unmet need. The immune system is known to be involved in the microenvironment of triple negative breast cancer (TNBC). Immune ratios like the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), the platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), the monocyte-lymphocyte ratio (MLR) and the systemic immune-inflammation index (SII) may reflect the immune system functional status in these patients and the involvement of circulating immune cells in cancer progression. In particular MLR showed to predict overall survival (OS) in aTNBC and to contribute to migration of circulating tumor cells [1]. Methods A retrospective-prospective, observational multicenter study from the GIM-14 experience was performed to investigate the association between inflammatory indexes (NLR, MLR, PLR and SII), as measured at baseline and at progression, and clinical and survival aspects in patients with aTNBC in first line setting. The optimal cutoff values between low and high expression of inflammatory indexes were established on the basis of cut-off values determined in a previously conducted study in order to validate them[1], and was used to predict progression-free survival (PFS) and OS. Time-to-event variables (PFS; OS) were calculated using Kaplan-Meier method, while Cox regression model was used to estimate HRs and their 95% CI. Results 105 consecutive patients with a diagnosis of aTNBC were fully evaluated for the final analysis. The median age at diagnosis was 55 years (33-86). Of them, 80 patients received a neo/adjuvant treatment after diagnosis. At first progression the majority of patients (n= 97) received chemotherapy, while only 8 patients were treated with chemo-immunotherapy due to the programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression in the immunohistochemical analyses. At a median follow-up of 54 months, median PFS in the whole patients population was 13 months (95% CI 9,4-16,5), while median OS was 17.3 OS (95% CI 13-22,2). All high inflammation based scores evaluated at diagnosis of metastatic disease were significantly associated with lower PFS, in particular high NLR (≥3) and high MLR (≥0.34) (p = 0.0006 and p = 0.011, respectively). Similarly, all high indexes appeared significantly associated with a lower OS, especially NLR (>3), SII (≥836) and MLR (≥0.34) (p < 0.0001, p = 0.0005, p=001 respectively). In particular also NLR and SII evaluated at disease progression after first line treatment were significantly associated with a worse OS (p=0.0006 and p=0.001 respectively). In multivariable analysis for predictors of overall survival, the number of metastatic sites, NLR, SII and MLR remained significant (p< 0.0001, p=0.006, p=0.005 respectively). Conclusions NLR, SII and MLR are predictors of OS in aTNBC. Although our results need validation with larger studies, we suggest that inflammatory ratios could be used as feasible biomarkers of prognosis and treatment efficacy in aTNBC. Further research about HER-2 low categorized patients will be updated and presented at the final meeting. 1. De Giorgi U, Mego M, Scarpi E, Giordano A, Giuliano M, Valero V, Alvarez RH, Ueno NT, Cristofanilli M, Reuben JM. Association between circulating tumor cells and peripheral blood monocytes in metastatic breast cancer. Ther Adv Med Oncol. 2019 Aug 14;11:1758835919866065. doi: 10.1177/1758835919866065. PMID: 31452692; PMCID: PMC6696837. Citation Format: Caterina Gianni, Michela Palleschi, Emanuela Scarpi, Filippo Merloni, Eva Blondeaux, Fabio Puglisi, Elena Collovà, Palma Pugliese, Francesco Cognetti, Irene Giannubilo, Tommaso Ruelle, Claudia Bighin, Lucia Del Mastro, Ugo De Giorgi. Inflammatory indexes as prognostic biomarkers in advanced triple negative breast cancer patients [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2022 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2022 Dec 6-10; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(5 Suppl):Abstract nr P2-11-19.
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