Letter from the Editor

Dear Reader,

Another year has passed – and so has the San Antonio Annual Breast Cancer Symposium 2021 (SABCS)! Here is our conference report, with more than 20 news-packed pages for you!

For the anthracycline believers (in adjuvant treatment), new support is presented and certainly new fuel for pros and cons discussions. Additionally, there is enough food for thought concerning the right adjuvant hormonal treatment in premenopausal women.

Don’t consider anti-oestrogens old stuff. There’s a newcomer: a Selective Estrogen Receptor Degrader (elacestrant). Concerning new substance classes, CDK7 inhibitors in hormone-sensitive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer also make an appearance.

Find further evidence with clear positioning of immune checkpoint inhibitors in neoadjuvant or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) – and more on conjugates in TNBC and HER2-poisitive disease.

Should metastatic HER2-negative patients be switched early to targeted agents, based on next generation sequencing? The SAFIR02-BREAST trial gives important insights on the use and decision-making, also based on ESMO’s ESCAT score.

You knew it all along – they confirmed it: Metformin did not make it, again… No effect was detected in early breast cancer, but even though – after all those trials – it still did not work in cancer, it does just fine in diabetes!

As always, I just picked a few samples. Please take the time to go through our exciting report, yourself.

Sincerely,

Stefan Rauh

 

Biography
Dr Stefan Rauh is currently working as oncologist/haematologist in the oncology department of Centre Hospitalier Emile Mayrisch, Esch, Luxembourg. He is mainly involved in clinical work but also in research and teaching activities and is interested in public policy and international cooperation projects in oncology. He is a member of the ESMO Practicing Oncologist’s Working Group since 2011 (chair 2014–2018), member of the ESMO Public Policy Committee, and has been an ESMO Executive Board member in 2015–2016. He is interested in survivorship of cancer patients and has published a clinician’s handbook on this topic: Survivorship Care for Cancer Patients.

Conflict of Interest Statement: Nothing to declare.



Posted on 31 January 2022