Fulvestrant can therefore be considered as alternative therapy to anastrozole or exemestane in postmenopausal women with locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer that has recurred on prior adjuvant endocrine therapy or progressed on prior endocrine therapy for advanced disease .
A systematic review was undertaken to examine all available evidence to develop and support clinical recommendations regarding the use of fulvestrant ( Faslodex ® ) as systemic therapy of locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer in postmenopausal women .
A retrospective analysis of the proportion of patients responding for > 1 year in two phase III studies of fulvestrant vs. anastrozole.
737 Background : Fulvestrant ( Faslodex ) is an estrogen receptor antagonist with no agonist effects . Two phase III trials have compared the efficacy of fulvestrant 250 mg ( once-monthly , intramuscular injection ) and anastrozole ( 1 mg/daily , p.o . ) in patients with advanced breast cancer progressing on prior endocrine therapy .  Fulvestrant was at least as effective as anastrozole for the primary endpoint of time to progression and the secondary endpoint of objective response ( OR ) . Here , we report a retrospective analysis of duration of response ( DOR ) by categorical time period ( ≥1 year ) in patients experiencing an OR ( complete [ CR ] or partial response [ PR ] ) or clinical benefit ( CB ; CR + PR + stable disease [ SD ] ≥24 weeks ) in these two trials . METHODS Duration of OR and CB was calculated from r and omization until disease progression and percentages were calculated using the total number of patients per treatment group as the denominator ( fulvestrant n=428 ; anastrozole n=423 ) . RESULTS Median follow-up was 22.1 months . A total of 186 patients receiving fulvestrant had CB ( CR : n=20 ; PR : n=62 ; SD ≥24 weeks : n=104 ) compared with 173 patients receiving anastrozole ( CR : n=11 ; PR : n=59 ; SD ≥24 weeks : n=103 ) . A numerically greater proportion of patients receiving fulvestrant achieved OR and CB for ≥1 year than those receiving anastrozole . CONCLUSION Fulvestrant has benefits in terms of the numbers of patients with prolonged duration of response . These data support the initial DOR findings in these trials . [ Figure : see text ] [ Table : see text ]
Fulvestrant can therefore be considered as alternative therapy to anastrozole or exemestane in postmenopausal women with locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer that has recurred on prior adjuvant endocrine therapy or progressed on prior endocrine therapy for advanced disease .
A systematic review was undertaken to examine all available evidence to develop and support clinical recommendations regarding the use of fulvestrant ( Faslodex ® ) as systemic therapy of locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer in postmenopausal women .