Photo Credit: Mohammed Haneefa Nizamudeen

The following is a summary of “Adjuvant Dose-Dense Chemotherapy in Hormone Receptor–Positive Breast Cancer,” published in the January 2025 issue of Oncology by Filho et al.    

Some individuals with node-positive estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer may experience limited benefit from chemotherapy, emphasizing the need for improved tools to predict treatment outcomes.  

Researchers conducted a prospective study to assess the outcomes of dose-dense chemotherapy for individuals with hormone receptor-positive (HR+) breast cancer.  

They randomly assigned 1,973 individuals to receive either dose-dense or conventional chemotherapy. Long-term disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) using Cox models were analyzed. SET2,3, a biomarker measuring endocrine transcriptional activity, was tested on 682 RNA samples from ER+ cancers.  

The results showed that dose-dense chemotherapy improved DFS by 23% (HR, 0.77 [95% CI, 0.66 to 0.90]) and OS by 20% (HR, 0.80 [95% CI, 0.67 to 0.95]). The benefits were observed in both ER+ and ER-negative subsets, with no significant interaction between the treatment arm and ER status. Low SET2,3 status was highly prognostic, predicting improved outcomes from dose-dense chemotherapy, specifically for OS (P=.027) and DFS (P=.0998), independent of menopausal status.  

They concluded that adjuvant dose-dense chemotherapy offers long-term benefits for individuals with node-positive breast cancer, with low endocrine transcriptional activity predicting the most benefit for those with ER+ breast cancer.  

Source: ascopubs.org/doi/10.1200/JCO-24-01875