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Clinical Trial
. 2021 Jan 1;27(1):311-319.
doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-20-2737. Epub 2020 Oct 27.

Breast Cancer Index Predicts Extended Endocrine Benefit to Individualize Selection of Patients with HR+ Early-stage Breast Cancer for 10 Years of Endocrine Therapy

Iris Noordhoek  1 , Kai Treuner  2 , Hein Putter  1 , Yi Zhang  2 , Jenna Wong  2 , Elma Meershoek-Klein Kranenbarg  1 , Marjolijn Duijm-de Carpentier  1 , Cornelis J H van de Velde  1 , Catherine A Schnabel  2 , Gerrit-Jan Liefers  3
Affiliations
Clinical Trial

Breast Cancer Index Predicts Extended Endocrine Benefit to Individualize Selection of Patients with HR+ Early-stage Breast Cancer for 10 Years of Endocrine Therapy

Iris Noordhoek et al. Clin Cancer Res. .

Abstract

Purpose: Individualized selection of patients with early-stage hormone receptor-positive (HR+) breast cancer for extended endocrine therapy (EET) is required to balance modest gains in outcome with toxicities of prolonged use. This study examined the Breast Cancer Index [BCI; HOXB13/IL17BR ratio (H/I)] as a predictive biomarker of EET benefit in patients from the Investigation on the Duration of Extended Adjuvant Letrozole trial.

Experimental design: BCI was tested in primary tumor specimens from 908 patients randomized to receive 2.5 versus 5 years of extended letrozole. The primary endpoint was recurrence-free interval. Cox models and likelihood ratios tested the interaction between EET and BCI (H/I).

Results: BCI (H/I)-high significantly predicted benefit from extended letrozole in the overall cohort [HR 0.42; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.21-0.84; P = 0.011] and any aromatase inhibitor subset [HR 0.34; 95% CI, 0.16-0.73; P = 0.004), whereas BCI (H/I)-low patients did not derive significant benefit (HR 0.95; 95% CI, 0.58-1.56; P = 0.84 and HR 0.90; 95% CI, 0.53-1.55; P = 0.71, respectively) treatment to biomarker interaction was significant (P = 0.045, P = 0.025, respectively). BCI identified approximately 50% of patients with clinically high-risk disease that did not benefit, and with clinically low-risk disease that derived significant benefit, from an additional 2.5 years of EET.

Conclusions: BCI (H/I) predicted preferential benefit from 5 versus 2.5 years of EET and identified patients with improved outcomes from completing 10 years of adjuvant endocrine therapy. Findings expand the clinical utility of BCI (H/I) to a broader range of patients and beyond prognostic risk factors as a predictive endocrine response biomarker for early-stage HR+ breast cancer.

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References

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