Abstract PO5-26-08: Caveats behind the improved outcomes observed in recent clinical trials for women with breast cancer: Korean breast cancer consensus meeting 2023
Authors: Han Airi , Kang Young-Joon , Kim Sei Hyun , Chae Eui Su , Kim Han Cho , Park Kyong Hwa 
Published: May 2024

Introduction

Korean Breast Cancer Society has organized the biennial Korean Breast Cancer Consensus Conference to find solutions to clinical situations that cannot be answered by randomized clinical trials or other definitive treatment research data.

Unlike guidelines which are designed to apply to the majority of patients with early or advanced breast cancer encountered in daily practice, consensus meetings yield answers from clinicians’ perspectives and experiences. Therefore, this meeting aimed to integrate patient preferences, treatment availability, or other individual circumstances upon recent medical advances and available evidence.

Materials and methods.

Panelists were invited from various filed, such as medical oncology, surgical oncology, radiation oncology, pathology, radiology, nuclear medicine, hereditary cancer specialist.

Results.

1. caveats behind optimizing treatment

There had been strong interests in refinening thresholes for treatment and it can be more or less than previous standard treatment. Some patients clearly required escalated treatment, such as ovarian function suppression, combined HER2-targeted treatment, and utilization of immunotherapy during neoadjuvant systemic treatment.

However, even same agent which showed great success for high risk patients showed

Disappointing results and even failure. Furthermore, we need more sophisticated decision even for successful stories which introduced above, because of their serious adverse events. AntiPd-1/PD-L1 showed different serious adverse events profiles and Trastuzumab-deruxtecan is related with life-threatening pulmonary complication.

Therefore, there is a clinical equipoise for an appropriate therapeutic threshold not only for low-risk patients but also high-risk patients who can safely forgo recommend treatment escalation in the newly introduced clinical trials.

2. Completely new serious adverse events observed in new drugs.

Unlike chemotherapy, most targeted therapies cause lethal damage that clinicians may not have experienced. Some, such as pulmonary complications from trastuzumab deruxtecan, can be fatal if not treated immediately. Even if patients survive, they may suffer catastrophic outcomes because these agents leave a fatal disability that is too great for the patient's quality of life. Moreover, in South Korea, where government-run health insurance is the only payer and at the same time policy maker, non-medical constraints such as passive reimbursement plans, value-based medicine, and intentional delay or denial of certain drugs, panelist delivered varing opinions on the extent to which new agents can be utilized and which treatment plan could offer equal clinical benefit with less toxicity, or provide for a measurable improvement in outcomes.

3. utilizing genomic signatures

Panelist raised issues genetic assay which analyzed genes currently we do not have treatment options which can modify disease process. Many questions were addressed such as, appropriate sampling time, which sample, liquid or tumor, can yield meaningful information.

Conclusion

Korean Breast Cancer consensus meeting highlighted important caveats behinds new promising findings. Clinical unmet need and uncertainty should be disclosed before patients because what clinician and patients work with is their life. Shared decision making is essential and patients should become well aware of science and medicine. Proactive approach of clinician is critical for these movements.

Citation Format: Airi Han, Young-Joon Kang, Sei Hyun Kim, Eui Su Chae, Han Cho Kim, Kyong Hwa Park. Caveats behind the improved outcomes observed in recent clinical trials for women with breast cancer: Korean breast cancer consensus meeting 2023 [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2023 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2023 Dec 5-9; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2024;84(9 Suppl):Abstract nr PO5-26-08.