Clinical Research Directory

Optimising Adjuvant Chemotherapy Prescription in Young Patients With Hormone-dependent Breast Cancer Using Genomic Tests

Rationale: Around 70 to 80% of breast cancers are so-called "hormone-dependent" (HR+)/HER2-. For more than 50 years, studies have shown that chemotherapy and optimised hormonal treatments (hormone therapy), including a drug associated with ovarian suppression (OFS), improve survival in patients with these cancers, which are characterised by a high risk of relapse. However, younger patients suffer more side effects than older women, particularly from chemotherapy. This can affect their quality of life and reduce their ability to work. For post-menopausal women, genetic tests exist to assess whether chemotherapy is really necessary in addition to hormonal treatment. However, for high-risk premenopausal patients, chemotherapy is still systematically recommended, as no study has proved that it can be safely avoided. Clinical trials based on risk stratification using genetic tests have not been conclusive, but the majority of premenopausal women included had not received optimal hormone treatment. It is possible that the beneficial effect of chemotherapy is partly due to the artificial menopause it induces. Some experts believe that, for patients with a high clinical risk but a low genetic risk, an optimised hormonal treatment (drug + OFS) could suffice, without the need for chemotherapy. Objectives: Main objective: The aim of the study is to determine whether the use of a genetic test (Prosigna®) to decide whether or not to administer chemotherapy produces results as good as standard treatment (systematic chemotherapy) in premenopausal women with hormone-dependent (HR+) breast cancer/HER2-, by assessing their risk of cancer recurrence. The secondary objectives include verifying whether, in patients with a low Prosigna® score (around 70% of cases), optimised hormonal treatment (including suppression of ovarian function) is as effective as chemotherapy combined with hormonal in treatment preventing cancer recurrence. The study also seeks to compare the efficacy of treatment Prosigna®-guided versus systematic chemotherapy in terms of recurrence and quality of life, as well as economic aspects. Finally, the aim is to understand patients' concerns about the concept of reducing treatment (therapeutic de-escalation) and the way in which this information is communicated to them. The primary endpoint of the study is to measure the time elapsed between the start of participation in the study and the appearance of an event indicating a return of the cancer. This includes the return of cancer in the same breast or neighbouring areas, the spread of cancer to other parts of the body, the appearance of new cancer in the other breast or death from any cause. Trial Population: The study includes women major premenopausal diagnosed with invasive, hormone receptor-positive (ER+) and HER2-negative breast cancer. Patients must have undergone breast and axillary surgery recent and have a tumour sample suitable for analysis by the testProsigna® . They must be able to receive the study treatments Postmenopausal women, women with stage IV breast cancer, women who have already received adjuvant systemic treatment (except short neoadjuvant hormone therapy), women with a recent history of invasive cancer, pregnant women or women who are breast-feeding will not be able to take part in the study. Interventions: After agreeing to take part, patients will enter the pre-inclusion period (up to 28 days before randomisation), during which the investigator will carry out all the necessary tests to assess their eligibility. The investigator will then randomise the patients to find out which treatment they have been assigned, no more than 2 weeks later: the experimental group will receive a treatment decided on the basis of the results of a genomic test: either chemotherapy and hormone therapy, or hormone therapy alone. The control group will receive the standard treatment. The treatment and follow-up phases are the same as for standard care. Information on the quality of life patient's will and other information (associated costs, perception of their participation in the study, etc.) also be collected by means of questionnaires completed by the patients during the 5 years following randomisation.

Sexual Dysfunction Check-up in Premenopausal Breast Cancer Survivors Taking Endocrine Therapy: A Cross-Sectional Study

Primary objectives: * To estimate Sexual Dysfunction (SD) incidence in premenopausal breast cancer patients treated by surgery and taking endocrine therapy. * To detect the presence of SD-related distress in the population, as a determining factor in the maintenance of a good quality of life. Secondary objectives: * To describe SD characteristics determining the most frequently reported symptoms and correlations with type of surgery or therapeutic regimens. * Collect baseline data for subsequent randomized trials involving practical interventions with the aim to reduce SD prevalence in this population.

Elacestrant With/Without Triptorelin in Premenopausal Women With Luminal Breast Cancer

PREMIERE parallel, non-comparative, two-arm, randomized 1:1, open-label, multicenter, exploratory window of opportunity study in premenopausal women with primary operable HR+/HER2-negative breast cancer with aiming at evaluating the biological effects of elacestrant with or without triptorelin.

OFS in Premenopausal Node+ Breast Cancer With Low Genomic Risk

Among ER+HER2- premenopausal patients with N1 who undergoes primary breast surgery, we will identify the patients with a genomic low risk using the multigene-assay (OncoFREE®). In these, ovarian function suppression with endocrine therapies including either tamoxifen or aromatase-inhibitors will be administered for 5 years.

Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy With or Without GnRH Agonist for Premenopausal Triple-negative Early Breast Cancer Patients

Breast cancer (BC), especially premenopausal, is emerging rapidly in East Asia in recent 20 years. Half of the breast cancer patients in Asia are younger than 50 years of age. In general, younger or premenopausal patients are associated with poorer prognosis. Premenopausal patients have higher estrogen levels than those in older (postmenopausal) patients. Estrogen is known to suppress anti-tumor T cell response and leading to tumor progression in different animal models (Clin Cancer Res 2016 22:6204), including lung cancer, melanoma, ovarian cancer. One of the mechanisms that contributes to estrogen's suppression of T cell function is via the mobilization of myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSC). Targeting ER signaling with hormonal therapy can abolish MDSC mobilization, and sensitize tumor cells to antigen specific T cell or NK cell killing (Cancer Discovery 2018 7:72 2017). These study results further support the hypothesis that, E2 is associated with immunosuppressive effect, and may contribute to the suppression of immune surveillance in young female breast cancer patients. These results suggest that E2 may suppress anti-tumor immunity, and E2 reduction improve the anti-tumor immunity. In our preliminary works, the investigators found higher dose (equivalent to premenopausal women serum level) of E2 suppressed T cell activities, while lower dose E2 (postmenopausal serum level) activated T cell activity. The investigators have investigated the combination of anti-PD1 antibody and GnRH agonist plus exemestane (an aromatase inhibitor which will block the production of E2 from adipose tissue) in ER positive premenopausal breast cancer patient refractory to prior endocrine therapy in metastatic setting. The response rate was 38.4%, and median progression-free survival (PFS) was 10.2 months. This outstanding result were presented in AACR 2021 oral session (Cancer Res 2021 81:13\_Supplement, CT028). On the other hand, progesterone is also well known for its anti-inflammation and immune tolerance activity. This possibly makes estrogen reduction treatments, such as gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist (GnRH agonist), an important partner in augmenting neoadjuvant therapy for patients with premenopausal breast cancer. For triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), endocrine therapy has no anti-tumor effect. On the other hand, the use of GnRH agonist has been tested for the protection of ovary function of young female while receiving adjuvant chemotherapy. Surprisingly, the concomitant use of goserelin and adjuvant chemotherapy improved disease-free survival (HR 0.47, P=0.04) and overall survival (HR 0.45, P=0.05) versus chemotherapy alone in ER negative premenopausal early BC patients in POEMS study, which was initially aimed to improve the success pregnant rate (N Engl J Med 2015 372;923). Endocrine therapy is theoretically antagonist to chemotherapy therapy when concomitantly use. In another report analyzed the outcome of both pre- and postmenopausal women who entered two randomized trials (Gruppo Oncologico Nord-Ovest-Mammella Intergruppo studies) on adjuvant chemotherapy and received either concomitant or sequential hormonal therapy. The result showed a decreasing trend (P = 0.015) in hazard ratio of death with increasing age was observed, indicating that concomitant therapy is more effective than sequential therapy in young patients (Annals of Oncology 2008;19(2):299-307). These results support the hypothesis that, E2 suppression/ER inhibition therapy may modulate immune microenvironment, thereby enhancing the chemotherapy induced immunogenic death effect. The investigators hypothesized that, estrogen level reduction by ovarian function suppression can modulate immune microenvironment, thereby augmenting adjuvant chemotherapy efficacy, regardless of the estrogen receptor (ER) status of cancer cell. Therefore, the investigators plan to test this hypothesis in real clinical model, with standard clinical recommended treatment doses. The study is designed to evaluate whether the GnRH agonist can provide the therapeutic benefit for premenopausal TNBC patients via modulating immune microenvironment. Premenopausal TNBC patients will receive GnRH agonist and neoadjuvant chemotherapy, and the efficacy and immune microenvironment change of co-administration arm will be measured and compared with chemotherapy alone control arm.

Immunotherapy, Hormone Therapy, and AKT Inhibitor for Premenopausal ER Positive MBC

This is an open-label randomized phase II study in estrogen receptor positive locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer patients. The main inclusion population are either luminal subtype B by PAM50 analysis or failed less than 2 lines of hormonal therapy for locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer. The subjects have to be premenopausal or perimenopausal and are not allowed to receive any systemic chemotherapy for their locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer. Eligible subjects will be randomized into goserelin/ fulvestrant/ durvalumab (Arm A), goserelin/ fulvestrant/ capivasertib/ durvalumab (Arm B), or goserelin/ fulvestrant/ capivasertib (Arm C) at a 1:1:1 ratio. The primary endpoint is objective response rate (ORR) of the whole other three arm compared to historical goserelin/ fulvestrantcontrol arm. The major secondary endpoint will be progression-free survival or ORR compared among different treatment arms.

Higher Dose Preoperative taMOxifen in Premenopausal bREast Cancer Patients

MORE-T trial is designed to investigate the effect of Tamoxifen 40mg (vs. Tamoxifen 20mg) for 2wks in presurgical setting. The greater reduction in Ki-67 might be observed in Tamoxifen 40mg arm compared to the Tamoxifen 20mg arm. Open Label, Phase 2, Randomized with 1:1 allocation