Background: Previous studies have suggested that the presence of visceral metastasis is a parameter useful in predicting the treatment efficacy of fulvestrant in patients with advanced breast cancer.
Patients and methods: We retrospectively examined the association between treatment efficacy and presence of visceral metastasis in 75 patients with hormone receptor-positive recurrent breast cancer who were treated with fulvestrant or no more than five lines of other endocrine monotherapy after recurrence.
Results: Nineteen patients received fulvestrant, 10 of whom had visceral metastasis. The median time to progression was 4 months for the overall study population; it was significantly longer for patients with non-visceral metastasis (5.4 months; 95% confidence interval=3.7-11.2 months) than for those with visceral metastasis (3.3 months; 95% confidence interval, 0.4-5.3 months; p=0.01). No differences in time to progression were found between the groups of patients with visceral metastasis and non-visceral metastasis who underwent other endocrine therapies.
Conclusion: Fulvestrant is more effective for patients with non-visceral metastasis of recurrent breast cancer with than for those with visceral metastasis.
Keywords: Fulvestrant; breast cancer; endocrine therapy; visceral metastasis.
Copyright© 2018, International Institute of Anticancer Research (Dr. George J. Delinasios), All rights reserved.