Overall Survival Results From Early Breast Cancer TEXT and SOFT Trials
Posted: Tuesday, January 16, 2018
Overall survival rates in women with hormone-receptor–positive breast cancer were not significantly improved with exemestane treatment versus tamoxifen, based on the updated research from the TEXT and SOFT trials. These results were presented at the 2017 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS; Abstract GS4-02).
These TEXT and SOFT trials compared exemestane versus tamoxifen plus ovarian function suppression (OFS) treatments for women with hormone receptor–positive early breast cancer. They randomly assigned premenopausal patients to receive exemestane plus OFS (n=2346) or tamoxifen plus OFS (n=2344).
“Oncologists really need to weigh the tolerability of exemestane versus tamoxifen with ovarian suppression,” noted one of the lead authors, Meredith Regan, ScD, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, in a recent press release. She concluded that treatment decisions should be based on an individual patient’s risk features. In addition, further follow-up may clarify the effect of exemestane and OFS on late recurrence and overall survival.
The combined results of the two studies found that the exemestane arm showed significantly improved disease-free survival after a median follow-up of 5.7 years; however, it was too early to determine overall survival rates. Current results show that after a median follow-up of 9 years, overall survival rates did not differ between the exemestane and the tamoxifen groups at 93.4% and 93.3%, respectively.
Overall toxicity was similar between the two groups and most commonly included hot flashes, musculoskeletal symptoms, and hypertension. Future follow-up will further elucidate the effects of exemestane plus OFS.
