SWOG Cancer Research Network members will share the results of three studies at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, an international gathering of breast cancer physicians and researchers that starts today, with an estimated 7,500 attendees expected from more than 90 countries.
SWOG is an international cancer clinical trials network funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In results they will share in posters presentations in San Antonio, all three SWOG researchers mined existing SWOG trial data to ask fresh, important questions about breast cancer.
"This work is creative and relevant, and shows breast cancers in all their complexity," said Julie Gralow, MD, the SWOG executive officer overseeing breast cancer research and an internationally acclaimed cancer researcher and physician. "Breast cancers and breast cancer patients present in multiple ways. In these three studies, SWOG researchers share results that better define subsets of patients and tumors with respect to treatment response, toxicities, and cancer recurrence. These are strong examples of our work."
"This shows that TNBC isn't just one disease," Sharma said. "We're now beginning to understand the molecular diversity of this type of breast cancer - and we need to test different treatments on these different subtypes in clinical trials."
"Our results make it clear that there is no synergistic, cancer-fighting effect when statins and bisphosphonates are taken together," Kizub said. "It will take a clinical trial to settle the question of whether statins have an impact on cancer recurrence."
"We need more studies to understand the biological basis for these findings, but the clinical implications are clear," Henry said. "For AI symptom management, physicians should consider duloxetine for pain for their breast cancer patients, particularly women who are obese. The better women manage their pain, the more likely they are to continue their AI treatment, and get the benefits of better health and better quality of life that comes with that treatment."
###
Sharma's research was funded by the National Institutes of Health through NCI grants CA180888 and CA180819, and in part by Amgen, an ASCO Advanced Clinical Cancer Research Award, the Eileen Stein Jacoby Fund, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, and the University of Kansas Cancer Center's Biospecimen Repository Core Facility through grant P30 CA168524.
Kizub's research was funded by the National Institutes of Health through NCI grants CA180888, CA180819, CA180820, CA180821, CA180868, CA180863, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, Susan G. Komen, Berlex Laboratories, Inc., Novartis, and Genentech, a member of the Roche Group.
Henry's research was funded by the National Institutes of Health through NCI grant CA189974, a Damon Runyon-Lilly Clinical Investigator Award #C1-53-10, Lilly USA, and The Hope Foundation for Cancer Research.
SWOG Cancer Research Network is part of the National Cancer Institute's National Clinical Trials Network and the NCI Community Oncology Research Program, and is part of the oldest and largest publicly-funded cancer research network in the nation. SWOG has nearly 12,000 members in 46 states and six foreign countries who design and conduct clinical trials to improve the lives of people with cancer. SWOG trials have led to the approval of 14 cancer drugs, changed more than 100 standards of cancer care, and saved more than 3 million years of human life. Learn more at swog.org.