Clinical value of next-generation sequencing in endocrine therapy for advanced hormone receptor–positive/HER2-negative breast cancer.

Abstract

1062 Background: Acquired gene mutation is a major mechanism of resistance to endocrine therapy in hormone receptor (HR)-positive advanced breast cancer. Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) facilitates the current assessment of the genomic profile in patients with advanced cancer. We performed this clinical trial to determine the landscape of gene mutation before endocrine therapy, to search for molecular markers of endocrine therapy efficacy, and to explore the clinical value of ctDNA to guide precise endocrine therapy in patients with advanced breast cancer. Methods: We conducted an open-label, single-center, multicohort, prospective study. Patients were women with pathologically and immunohistochemically confirmed HR-positive/HER-2-negative patients with advanced breast cancer. Patients relapsed during or after adjuvant endocrine therapy or progressed after completing at least one previous line of treatment for advanced breast cancer. Patients were assigned to four parallel treatment cohortsmatched to mutations identified in ctDNA: 1) cohort A comprised patients with abnormal activation of PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway signal, preferred mTOR inhibitor combined with endocrine therapy; 2) cohort B comprised patients with ESR1 mutation and who did not use fulvestrant before, preferred fulvestrant; 3) cohort C comprised patients with HER2 mutations, preferred pyrotinib combined with endocrine therapy; 4) cohort D comprised patients with no significant gene mutation, making treatment plan according to the actual clinical situation. If more than one mutation was identified, the priority of entry is cohorts C, cohorts A and cohort B. In the A-D cohort, patients who obey the treatment plan are the compliance group, and patients who do not obey the treatment plan are the violation group. The primary endpoints were progression-free survival (PFS), and the secondary endpoints included overall survival time (OS). Results: A total of 113 patients underwent NGS detection of ctDNA, and 84 patients were enrolled in the study. In all cohorts, combined median PFS was 4.9 months, and the median PFS in the compliance group was 3.0 months longer than in the violation group (6.03 vs 3.03 months, p = 0.0222, HR = 0.5743, 95%CI 0.3273-1.007). In cohort C, the median PFS was 11.1 months in the compliance group and 2.22 months in the violation group (p = 0.0067, HR = 0.1980, 95%CI 0.032-1.22). There was no significant difference in the median PFS between patients with and without compliance with the treatment protocol in cohort A and cohort B (p = 0.5054 and 0.7325, respectively). Conclusions: The study suggested that ctDNA detection may guide the optimal endocrine therapy strategy for patients with advanced breast cancer and achieve the benefit of progression free survival. NGS detection might distinguish patients with HER2 mutation and provide new treatment strategies. Clinical trial information: NCT03786575.