Some postmenopausal women with breast cancer do not benefit from chemotherapy when it’s added to hormone therapy, according to initial results of a clinical trial.
The findings apply to postmenopausal women with hormone receptor (HR)-positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-negative breast cancer that has spread to a limited number of lymph nodes, and whose recurrence risk is relatively low.
The findings may save tens of thousands of postmenopausal women each year the time, money, and harmful side effects that come with chemotherapy infusions.
This is the first evidence in a randomized phase III trial that postmenopausal women with HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer that has spread to one to three lymph nodes can safely forgo chemotherapy if their recurrence score on a genomic tumor tissue test is 25 or less.