A note on versions:The version presented here may differ from the published version or from the version of record. If you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher's version. Please see the repository url above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription.For more information, please contact eprints@nottingham.ac.uk The objective of the current study was to confirm the superior PFS advantage for 103 fulvestrant versus anastrozole observed in the FIRST study, in a double-blind Phase 3 104 design. The population for FALCON were postmenopausal women with hormone 105 receptor-positive locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer who had not received 106 prior endocrine therapy, in order to avoid reducing efficacy of the control arm through 107 exposure to adjuvant endocrine therapy. 108 METHODS 109 Study design 110The Fulvestrant and AnastrozoLe COmpared in hormonal therapy Naïve advanced 111 breast cancer (FALCON) trial (Clinicaltrials.gov: NCT01602380) is a Phase 3 112 randomised, double-blind, double-dummy, international, multicentre study that 113 compared the efficacy and tolerability of fulvestrant with anastrozole in 114 postmenopausal women with histologically confirmed ER+ and/or PgR+ locally 115 advanced or metastatic breast cancer. 116 Ethical approval 117The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and 118International Conference on Harmonisation/Good Clinical Practice guidelines. An 119 Randomisation and masking 133Patients were randomised sequentially (1:1) to fulvestrant 500 mg or anastrozole 1 mg 134 using a computer-generated randomisation scheme and an integrated voice/web 135 response system. Patients were stratified at randomisation according to locally 136 advanced or metastatic breast cancer; prior or no prior treatment with chemotherapy 137 for locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer; and measurable or non-measurable 138 disease. 139Study drugs were labelled using a unique identifier linked to the randomisation 140 scheme. The active study drug and placebo for fulvestrant (pre-filled syringes) and 141 anastrozole (tablets) were identically packaged to maintain blinding. 142 progression. Safety and tolerability were assessed at each study visit, and for up to 8 154 weeks after the last fulvestrant/placebo injection. HRQoL questionnaires were 155 administered at baseline and at 3-monthly intervals. Following disease progression or 156 treatment discontinuation, HRQoL questionnaires will be administered at 6-monthly 157 until a final OS analysis. 158 Outcomes 159The primary endpoint of the study was to demonstrate the superior PFS of patients 160 treated with fulvestrant vs anastrozole. A progression event was determined based on 161 tumour assessments performed locally by each investigator, and was defined by 162Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumours (RECIST) 1·1, or 163 surgery/radiotherapy for worsening of disease, or death from any cause. 164 OS and ORR were tested using a multiple ...

The data show letrozole 2.5 mg once daily to be more effective and better tolerated than MA in the treatment of postmenopausal women with advanced breast cancer previously treated with antiestrogens.

The molecular mechanisms responsible for the association of obesity with adverse colon cancer outcomes are poorly understood. We investigated the effects of a high-energy diet on growth of an in vivo colon cancer model. Seventeen days following the injection of 5!10 5 MC38 colon carcinoma cells, tumors from mice on the high-energy diet were approximately twice the volume of those of mice on the control diet. These findings were correlated with the observation that the highenergy diet led to elevated insulin levels, phosphorylated AKT, and increased expression of fatty acid synthase (FASN) by the tumor cells. Metformin, an antidiabetic drug, leads to the activation of AMPK and is currently under investigation for its antineoplastic activity. We observed that metformin blocked the effect of the high-energy diet on tumor growth, reduced insulin levels, and attenuated the effect of diet on phosphorylation of AKT and expression of FASN. Furthermore, the administration of metformin led to the activation of AMPK, the inhibitory phosphorylation of acetyl-CoA carboxylase, the upregulation of BNIP3 and increased apoptosis as estimated by poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) cleavage. Prior work showed that activating mutations of PI3K are associated with increased AKT activation and adverse outcome in colon cancer; our results demonstrate that the aggressive tumor behavior associated with a high-energy diet has similar effects on this signaling pathway. Furthermore, metformin is demonstrated to reverse the effects of the high-energy diet, thus suggesting a potential role for this agent in the management of a metabolically defined subset of colon cancers.

In the last half of the century, advances in the systemic therapy of cancer, including chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, targeted therapy, and immunotherapy have been responsible for improvements in cancer related mortality in developed countries even as the population continues to age. Although such advancements have yet to benefit all cancer types, systemic therapies have led to an improvement in overall survival in both the adjuvant and metastatic setting for many cancers. With the pressure to make therapies available as soon as possible, the side-effects of systemic therapies, in particular long-term side-effects are not very well characterized and understood. Increasingly, a number of cancer types are requiring long-term and even lifelong systemic therapy. This is true for both younger and older patients with cancer and has important implications for each subset. Younger patients have an overall greater expected life-span, and as a result may suffer a greater variety of treatment related complications in the long-term, whereas older patients may develop earlier side-effects as a result of their frailty. Because the incidence of cancer in the world will increase over the next several decades and there will be more people living with cancer, it is important to have an understanding of the potential side-effects of new systemic therapies. As an introductory article, in this review series, we begin by describing some of the major advances made in systemic cancer therapy along with some of their known side-effects and we also make an attempt to describe the future of systemic cancer therapy.

Many current chemotherapies function by damaging genomic DNA in rapidly dividing cells ultimately leading to cell death. This therapeutic approach differentially targets cancer cells that generally display rapid cell division compared to normal tissue cells. However, although these treatments are initially effective in arresting tumor growth and reducing tumor burden, resistance and disease progression eventually occur. A major mechanism underlying this resistance is increased levels of cellular DNA repair. Most cells have complex mechanisms in place to repair DNA damage that occurs due to environmental exposures or normal metabolic processes. These systems, initially overwhelmed when faced with chemotherapy induced DNA damage, become more efficient under constant selective pressure and as a result chemotherapies become less effective. Thus, inhibiting DNA repair pathways using target specific small molecule inhibitors may overcome cellular resistance to DNA damaging chemotherapies. Non-homologous end joining a major mechanism for the repair of double-strand breaks (DSB) in DNA is regulated in part by the serine/threonine kinase, DNA dependent protein kinase (DNA-PK). The DNA-PK holoenzyme acts as a scaffold protein tethering broken DNA ends and recruiting other repair molecules. It also has enzymatic activity that may be involved in DNA damage signaling. Because of its’ central role in repair of DSBs, DNA-PK has been the focus of a number of small molecule studies. In these studies specific DNA-PK inhibitors have shown efficacy in synergizing chemotherapies in vitro. However, compounds currently known to specifically inhibit DNA-PK are limited by poor pharmacokinetics: these compounds have poor solubility and have high metabolic lability in vivo leading to short serum half-lives. Future improvement in DNA-PK inhibition will likely be achieved by designing new molecules based on the recently reported crystallographic structure of DNA-PK. Computer based drug design will not only assist in identifying novel functional moieties to replace the metabolically labile morpholino group but will also facilitate the design of molecules to target the DNA-PKcs/Ku80 interface or one of the autophosphorylation sites.

Highly monodisperse sequence-defined spherical nucleic acids (HE12–SNAs) for delivery of small-molecule anticancer drugs.

See Appendix for individual names.Background: Pertuzumab combined with trastuzumab and docetaxel is the standard first-line therapy for HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer, based on results from the phase III CLEOPATRA trial. PERUSE was designed to assess the safety and efficacy of investigator-selected taxane with pertuzumab and trastuzumab in this setting. Patients and methods:In the ongoing multicentre single-arm phase IIIb PERUSE study, patients with inoperable HER2-positive advanced breast cancer (locally recurrent/metastatic) (LR/MBC) and no prior systemic therapy for LR/MBC (except endocrine therapy) received docetaxel, paclitaxel or nab-paclitaxel with trastuzumab [8 mg/kg loading dose, then 6 mg/kg every 3 weeks (q3w)] and pertuzumab (840 mg loading dose, then 420 mg q3w) until disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. The primary end point was safety. Secondary end points included overall response rate (ORR) and progression-free survival (PFS). Results:Overall, 1436 patients received at least one treatment dose (initially docetaxel in 775 patients, paclitaxel in 589, nabpaclitaxel in 65; 7 discontinued before starting taxane). Median age was 54 years; 29% had received prior trastuzumab. Median treatment duration was 16 months for pertuzumab and trastuzumab and 4 months for taxane. Compared with docetaxel-containing therapy, paclitaxel-containing therapy was associated with more neuropathy (all-grade peripheral neuropathy 31% versus 16%) but less febrile neutropenia (1% versus 11%) and mucositis (14% versus 25%). At this preliminary analysis (52 months' median follow-up), median PFS was 20.6 [95% confidence interval (CI) 18.9-22.7] months overall (19.6, 23.0 and 18.1 months with docetaxel, paclitaxel and nab-paclitaxel, respectively). ORR was 80% (95% CI 78%-82%) overall (docetaxel 79%, paclitaxel 83%, nab-paclitaxel 77%).Conclusions: Preliminary findings from PERUSE suggest that the safety and efficacy of first-line pertuzumab, trastuzumab and taxane for HER2-positive LR/MBC are consistent with results from CLEOPATRA. Paclitaxel appears to be a valid alternative taxane backbone to docetaxel, offering similar PFS and ORR with a predictable safety profile.ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01572038.

Background:Immunohistological assessment of Ki 67 expression is less expensive than Oncotype Dx, which is currently used to identify patients with lymph node-negative breast cancer, who will benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy.Methods:The relationship of immunohistologically measured Ki 67 to Oncotype DX recurrence score (RS) was examined in 53 cases of T1–2 N0 M0 (oestrogen receptor-positive, HER2/neu negative) breast cancer.Results:There was a strong linear correlation between Ki 67 value and the Oncotype Dx RS. All patients in the low Ki 67 group (Ki 67 of ⩽10%) had Oncotype Dx RSs of low or intermediate risk. The vast majority of patients (93.8%) in the high-Ki 67 group (Ki 67⩾25%) had oncotype RSs of high or intermediate risk.Conclusion:Ki 67 proliferation value is a major, but not the sole determinant of Oncotype Dx score.