Recent advances in breast cancer: the 27th ESMO Congress 2002

SUMMARY

Breast cancer was the focus of several presentations during the 27th European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress held in Nice. Fulvestrant seems to be equally effective to tamoxifen as a first-line therapy in hormone-sensitive advanced breast cancer in postmenopausal women. However, it may be more effective than tamoxifen in ER- and PgR-positive disease. The addition of tamoxifen to epirubicin containing regimens was found to significantly increase PFS and OS in patients with MBC according to a multivariate analysis of 640 patients. BRCA-1 linked breast cancer was reported to be more sensitive to anthracycline-based CTthan sporadic and BRCA-2 linked disease.

VEGF was found to be an independent prognostic factor in patients with node-negative breast cancer. The implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.

Keywords: :

• Breast cancer
• ESMO 2002
• Epirubicin
• Fulvestrant
• Tamoxifen