Episode Notes

About 80% of breast cancers are ER+, meaning that the cancer cells have estrogen receptors, and estrogen is likely to make them grow. Here’s the good news/bad news story for ER+ MBC patients. First, the good news: there are a number of effective medications that either reduce available systemic estrogen or block its ability to stimulate cancer growth. The bad news: over time, ER+ cancers develop resistance to these medications, resulting in cancer progression and signaling the need for a new treatment. For many of us with ER+ MBC, that means a repeating cycle of high stakes scans, biopsies, and blood tests—and the ever present fear that we will run out of treatment options. 

Fortunately, there is more good news: the best minds in cancer research are on the case. In this episode, the Our MBC Life team hears from two dynamic MSK oncologists on treatment strategies and the latest research around the problem of endocrine resistance

 Dr. Pedram Razavi and Dr. Komal Jhaveri will review recent advances in delineating mechanisms of resistance to endocrine therapies and potential strategies to overcome such resistance including the molecular tumor board that meets regularly at MSK 

Subjects and Terms Included in This Episode

Novel Therapies Mentioned in the Episode


Clinical Trials

Clinical Trials Investigated by Dr. Jhaveri and Dr. Razavi

Clinical Trials Investigated by Dr. Ezra Rosen

Research and Publications

The Genomic Landscape of Endocrine-Resistant Advanced Breast Cancers.

Razavi P, Chang MT, Xu G, Bandlamudi C, Ross DS, Vasan N, Cai Y, Bielski CM, Donoghue MTA, Jonsson P, Penson A, Shen R, Pareja F, Kundra R, Middha S, Cheng ML, Zehir A, Kandoth C, Patel R, Huberman K, Smyth LM, Jhaveri K, Modi S, Traina TA, Dang C, Zhang W, Weigelt B, Li BT, Ladanyi M, Hyman DM, Schultz N, Robson ME, Hudis C, Brogi E, Viale A, Norton L, Dickler MN, Berger MF, Iacobuzio-Donahue CA, Chandarlapaty S, Scaltriti M, Reis-Filho JS, Solit DB, Taylor BS, Baselga J.Cancer Cell. 2018 Sep 10;34(3):427-438.e6. doi: 10.1016

Double PIK3CA mutations in cis increase oncogenicity and sensitivity to PI3Kα inhibitors.

Vasan N, Razavi P, Johnson JL, Shao H, Shah H, Antoine A, Ladewig E, Gorelick A, Lin TY, Toska E, Xu G, Kazmi A, Chang MT, Taylor BS, Dickler MN, Jhaveri K, Chandarlapaty S, Rabadan R, Reznik E, Smith ML, Sebra R, Schimmoller F, Wilson TR, Friedman LS, Cantley LC, Scaltriti M, Baselga J.Science. 2019 Nov 8;366(6466):714-723. doi: 10.1126/science.aaw9032.

Alterations in PTEN and ESR1 promote clinical resistance to alpelisib plus aromatase inhibitors.

Razavi P, Dickler MN, Shah PD, Toy W, Brown DN, Won HH, Li BT, Shen R, Vasan N, Modi S, Jhaveri K, Caravella BA, Patil S, Selenica P, Zamora S, Cowan AM, Comen E, Singh A, Covey A, Berger MF, Hudis CA, Norton L, Nagy RJ, Odegaard JI, Lanman RB, Solit DB, Robson ME, Lacouture ME, Brogi E, Reis-Filho JS, Moynahan ME, Scaltriti M, Chandarlapaty S.


Selective AKT kinase inhibitor capivasertib in combination with fulvestrant in PTEN-mutant ER-positive metastatic breast cancer.Smyth LM, Batist G, Meric-Bernstam F, Kabos P, Spanggaard I, Lluch A, Jhaveri K, Varga A, Wong A, Schram AM, Ambrose H, Carr TH, de Bruin EC, Salinas-Souza C, Foxley A, Hauser J, Lindemann JPO, Maudsley R, McEwen R, Moschetta M, Nikolaou M, Schiavon G, Razavi P, Banerji U, Baselga J, Hyman DM, Chandarlapaty S.

A First-in-Human Study of the New Oral Selective Estrogen Receptor Degrader AZD9496 for ER+/HER2- Advanced Breast Cancer.

Hamilton EP, Patel MR, Armstrong AC, Baird RD, Jhaveri K, Hoch M, Klinowska T, Lindemann JPO, Morgan SR, Schiavon G, Weir HM, Im SA.

Circulating Biomarkers and Resistance to Endocrine Therapy in Metastatic Breast Cancers: Correlative Results from AZD9496 Oral SERD Phase I Trial.

Paoletti C, Schiavon G, Dolce EM, Darga EP, Carr TH, Geradts J, Hoch M, Klinowska T, Lindemann J, Marshall G, Morgan S, Patel P, Rowlands V, Sathiyayogan N, Aung K, Hamilton E, Patel M, Armstrong A, Jhaveri K, Im SA, Iqbal N, Butt F, Dive C, Harrington EA, Barrett JC, Baird R, Hayes DF.

Activating ESR1 Mutations Differentially Affect the Efficacy of ER Antagonists.Toy W, Weir H, Razavi P, Lawson M, Goeppert AU, Mazzola AM, Smith A, Wilson J, Morrow C, Wong WL, De Stanchina E, Carlson KE, Martin TS, Uddin S, Li Z, Fanning S, Katzenellenbogen JA, Greene G, Baselga J, Chandarlapaty S.

Enhanced specificity of clinical high-sensitivity tumor mutation profiling in cell-free DNA via paired normal sequencing using MSK-ACCESS.

Rose Brannon A, Jayakumaran G, Diosdado M, Patel J, Razumova A, Hu Y, Meng F, Haque M, Sadowska J, Murphy BJ, Baldi T, Johnson I, Ptashkin R, Hasan M, Srinivasan P, Rema AB, Rijo I, Agarunov A, Won H, Perera D, Brown DN, Samoila A, Jing X, Gedvilaite E, Yang JL, Stephens DP, Dix JM, DeGroat N, Nafa K, Syed A, Li A, Lebow ES, Bowman AS, Ferguson DC, Liu Y, Mata DA, Sharma R, Yang SR, Bale T, Benhamida JK, Chang JC, Dogan S, Hameed MR, Hechtman JF, Moung C, Ross DS, Vakiani E, Vanderbilt CM, Yao J, Razavi P, Smyth LM, Chandarlapaty S, Iyer G, Abida W, Harding JJ, Krantz B, O'Reilly E, Yu HA, Li BT, Rudin CM, Diaz L, Solit DB, Arcila ME, Ladanyi M, Loomis B, Tsui D, Berger MF, Zehir A, Benayed R.Nat Commun. 2021 Jun 18;12(1):3770. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-24109-5.

Large Study Pinpoints Genetic Changes Underlying Drug Resistance in the Most Common Type of Breast Cancer

Scientists are learning how estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer evolves to thwart hormonal therapies and are developing ways to stop it. (65 kB)

https://www.mskcc.org/news/large-study-pinpoints-genetic-changes-underlying-drug-resistance-most-common-type-breast

 

Want more?

Enhertu granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation in the US for patients with HER2-low metastatic breast cancer

For an introduction to resistance and progression, we suggest that you listen to this episode with Dr. Stephanie Graff, Director of the Breast Oncology Program at Lifespan Cancer Institute and co-leader of the Breast Cancer Translational Research Disease Group at Brown University in Rhode Island.


Meet the Guests of this Episode

Komal Jhaveri, MD, FACP

Komal Jhaveri, MD, FACP

Dr. Jhaveri is an Associate Attending Physician and the Section Head for the Endocrine Therapy Research Program within the Breast Medicine Service and the Clinical Director for the Early Drug Development Service at MSKCC.  She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine in NYC. She earned her medical degree followed by a training in nuclear medicine from the University of Mumbai. She completed her Internal Medicine residency from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York and her Medical Oncology and Hematology fellowship at MSKCC.

Dr. Jhaveri’s primary research interests focus on the development of improved She conducts companion translational research in collaboration with her laboratory and imaging colleagues and is focused on identifying and understanding the biomarkers of response and/or resistance to novel therapies through acquired cfDNA and tissue samples or imaging analyses. She has led the development of many targeted therapies including and not limited to PI3K/Akt inhibitors, FGFR inhibitors, ERBB2 inhibitors, oral SERD’s, Antibody-drug conjugates, amongst others.

Dr. Jhaveri is a member of the Alliance Breast Committee and the Co-Chair for the Endocrine Resistance working group within the TBCRC. Her work has been presented at annual scientific meetings of the ASCO, AACR, ESMO, and the SABCS and has been published widely in many reputable journals.

Twitter:  @jhaveri_komal

Pedram Razavi, MD, PhD Assistant Attending  Breast Medicine Service Department of Medicine Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center   Dr. Razavi is a medical oncologist and a physician-scientist focused on personalized care in breast cance

Pedram Razavi, MD, PhD

Dr. Razavi is a medical oncologist and a physician-scientist focused on personalized care in breast cancer at MSKCC. He is the Director of MSK Breast Molecular Tumor Board, Breast Liquid Biopsy Program and Translational Platform and Associate Director of MSK Biomarker Development Program. He obtained his medical degree from Tehran University of Medical Sciences. He has a PhD in cancer epidemiology with a focus on population genetics at the University of Southern California followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Channing Laboratory in Boston. He did his internal medicine residency training at the University of Southern California and completed his medical oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center where he was also a postdoctoral fellow at the Laboratory of Dr. Jose Baselga. He joined MSK faculty in 2016 as a breast oncologist.

His research efforts have been focused on two major areas: 1) integrative clinicogenomic studies to guide hypothesis-based translational research in breast cancer, and 2) the development and validation of circulating tumor biomarkers such as circulating ctDNA, methylomes . He serves as the PI of multiple large-scale genomic studies in breast cancer to devise and optimize computational and analytical pipelines based on statistical methods and machine learning algorithms to identify the biomarkers of response and resistance to systemic therapy and to predict outcomes. These efforts have led to the identification of novel mechanisms of resistance to major targeted therapies modalities in breast cancer including endocrine therapy, CDK4/6 inhibitors and PI3K inhibitors and shed light on new potentially druggable genomic drivers of breast cancer. 

Twitter:  @PedramRazaviMD

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