Summary
We present the case of an 81-year-old woman with a past history of hormone receptor-positive breast cancer of the left breast, who underwent mastectomy followed by radiotherapy in 1989 and who was treated with five years of adjuvant tamoxifen. Ten years later she experienced a local relapse and was treated with different lines of endocrine and chemotherapy without any success. After discussion of her case in a multidisciplinary team, eribulin was proposed. Eribulin is a new type of microtubule dynamics inhibitor and is a synthetic analogue of halichondrin B, which was isolated from a marine sponge. It has been tested in patients with locally recurrent or metastatic disease and has shown a survival benefit when compared to treatment of physician’s choice (TPC; any single-agent chemotherapy or hormonal or biological treatment approved for the treatment of cancer, radiotherapy or symptomatic treatment). In the international Phase III Eisai Metastatic Breast Cancer Study Assessing Physician’s Choice Versus Eribulin (EMBRACE) trial. The total median overall survival for women treated with eribulin was 13.1 months compared to 10.7 months for TPC. These results could potentially establish eribulin as a new treatment standard for this particular group of patients.
(BELG J MED ONCOL 2013;7:27–30)
