Breast cancer in women over 70: a study calls into question the interest of chemotherapy | The daily life of the pharmacist | Medication & parapharmacy

According to the ASTER 70S study. In addition, promoted by unicancer and the Curie Institute, the addition of chemotherapy to hormone therapy does not provide a significant benefit of survival in women aged 70 and over with hormonensensible breast cancer.

For patients over the age of 70. In addition, suffering from hormone -dependent breast cancer, no significant benefit is observed thanks to chemotherapy when she comes in addition to hormone therapy. However, In short, this is the summary that could be made of the ASTER 70S study, recently published in “The Lancet”. Therefore, Works that mark “A decisive advance for the management of breast cancer in elderly women”. Similarly, estimates the Curie Institute, at the origin of this study.

For the needs of this study, 2,000 women were followed for about 8 years. Two groups were compared, one had received chemotherapy breast cancer women over 70: followed by hormone therapy and the other had received hormone therapy alone. “The results show that adding chemotherapy does not provide significant benefit in terms of global survival. At 4 years old, the survival rate was 90.5 % in the chemotherapy group, compared to 89.3 % in the group without chemotherapy. At 8 years old, rates were 72.7 % and 68.3 % respectively. The difference from 4.5 points to 8 years is not statistically significant ”describes the study. Cancerologist at the Curie Institute. the main author of this study, Étienne Brain, presented these results on the antenna of “Europe 1”. “With 8 years of hindsight, we do not find a higher profit when chemotherapy is made, says the researcher. It is as if this chemotherapy does not correct this risk of relapse in relation to hormone therapy alone. ”he synthesized.

In addition to these insufficient benefits, chemotherapy has proven breast cancer women over 70: to be “Clearly more toxic” in patients over 70 years old. Additionally, “Grade 3. more side effects occurred in 34 % of patients treated with chemotherapy, compared to only 9 % in the hormone therapy group alone. In addition. patients who have received chemotherapy reported a more marked deterioration of their quality of life, especially in connection with fatigue, pain, digestive disorders and a drop in autonomy “underline this work.

For Pr Brain, the study “Illustrates although the intensity of treatment must be adjusted downwards in this older population”. This is indeed the message that the authors of the ASTER 70S study wish to convey now: it is necessary “Adapt the treatments to the biological characteristics of tumors. but also to age, fragility and preferences of patients” et “Favor a reasoned therapeutic de -escalation strategy in these elderly patients, reserving adjuvant chemotherapy for specific cases”. They also insist on breast cancer women over 70: the importance of “Rethinking the development model of innovations improving the management standards. taking into account more particularly the relationship between profits and risks for the elderly”.