Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Exp Med. Aug 20, 2015; 5(3): 194-199
Published online Aug 20, 2015. doi: 10.5493/wjem.v5.i3.194
Eribulin for heavily pre-treated metastatic breast cancer patients
Antonia Digklia, Ioannis A Voutsadakis
Antonia Digklia, Department of Oncology, University Hospital of Lausanne, 1011 Lausanne, Switzerland
Ioannis A Voutsadakis, Division of Medical Oncology, Department of Medicine, Sault Area Hospital, Sault Ste Marie, Ontario ON P6B 0A8, Canada
Ioannis A Voutsadakis, Division of Clinical Sciences, Northern Ontario School of Medicine, Sudbury ON P3E 2C6, Canada
Author contributions: Digklia A collected data; Voutsadakis IA conceived and designed the project, analyzed data and wrote the paper.
Institutional review board statement: As per our institution guidelines, no IRB approval is needed for retrospective reviews of patients whose care has directly involved or been supervised by an investigator.
Informed consent statement: Given that the study was retrospective in nature and the fact that treatments had been provided according to standards of care, no specific informed consents were needed or obtained from individual patients. Anonymity was guaranteed.
Conflict-of-interest statement: We have no conflicts of interest regarding this study.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Ioannis A Voutsadakis, MD, PhD, Division of Medical Oncology, Department of Medicine, Sault Area Hospital, 750 Great Northern Road, Sault Ste Marie, Ontario ON P6B 0A8, Canada. ivoutsadakis@yahoo.com
Telephone: +1-705-7593434 Fax: +1-705-7593815
Received: March 23, 2015
Peer-review started: March 23, 2015
First decision: April 10, 2015
Revised: April 22, 2015
Accepted: June 18, 2015
Article in press: June 19, 2015
Published online: August 20, 2015
Abstract

AIM: To discuss treatment with eribulin in clinical practice outside a clinical trial.

METHODS: Archives of patients treated for metastatic breast cancer were reviewed and 21 patients treated with the new chemotherapeutic eribulin mesylate, a synthetic analog of a natural marine product, were identified. Information on patients’ characteristics and treatment outcomes was extracted. Treatment with eribulin mesylate was initiated at the recommended dose of 1.4 mg/m2 on days 1 and 8 of a 21-day cycle in 17 patients and at a decreased dose of 1.1 mg/m2 on days 1 and 8 of a 21-day cycle in 4 patients due to comorbidities and frailty. Efficacy of the drug was evaluated using the revised Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors criteria. Progression-Free Survival and overall survival (OS) were calculated using the Kaplan-Meier method starting from the date of eribulin therapy initiation to the date of disease progression documentation or death, respectively.

RESULTS: The median age of patients at the time of eribulin mesylate treatment was 53 years (range 34-75). Sixteen patients had estrogen receptor (ER) and/or partial response (PR) positive disease and 5 had ER/PR negative disease (all triple negative). Eight patients had received 2 or 3 previous lines of chemotherapy for metastatic disease and 13 patients had received 4 or more lines of treatment. The median number of cycles of eribulin received was 3 (range 1-16 years). All patients, except one, discontinued treatment due to progressive disease and one patient due to adverse effects. Six patients had a dose reduction due to side effects. All patients had progressed at the time of the report with a median time to progression of 3 mo (range 1 to 14 mo). Fifteen patients had died with a median OS of 7 mo (range 1-18 mo). Six patients were alive with a median follow-up of 13.5 mo (range 7 to 19 mo).

CONCLUSION: This series of patients confirms the activity of eribulin in a heavily pre-treated metastatic breast cancer population consistent with phase II and III trials.

Keywords: Breast cancer, Metastatic, Eribulin, Case series, Retrospective, Treatment

Core tip:This report discusses treatment with eribulin in clinical practice outside a clinical trial setting. It confirms the activity of eribulin in a heavily pre-treated metastatic breast cancer population.