WEBINAR RECORDING AVAILABLE - WATCH ON DEMAND

Post-SABCS summary & year in review: ctDNA in drug development for breast cancer

Multiple studies have demonstrated that detection of molecular residual disease (MRD) is associated with poor prognosis in breast cancer. Ongoing prospective clinical trials are underway to assess the efficacy of therapeutic interception.

Our expert speakers will discuss the latest data from SABCS 2023 and recent publications and congresses. This will be followed by a panel discussion on the future directions and implications for drug development and clinical trial design in this rapidly evolving space.

Findings presented will span treatment setting, including:

Neoadjuvant:

Early ctDNA dynamics during neoadjuvant chemotherapy predicted clinical outcomes in high-risk early-stage HER2-negative breast cancers (Magbanua et al, Cancer Cell 2023, George et al., ESMO Breast 2023)
How ctDNA monitoring during neoadjuvant therapy could facilitate real-time assessment of treatment response, identify patients at high risk of disease progression, and inform treatment strategy in the adjuvant setting (George et al., SABCS 2023)

Post-Op Adjuvant & Surveillance:

Early stage TNBC patients who were ctDNA-positive post-op did not clear on capecitabine, suggesting a need for novel agents in the adjuvant setting (Gupta et al., ESMO Breast 2023)
Serial post-operative ctDNA analysis identified patients at very high risk of recurrence (Shaw et al., ASCO 2022, Pusztai et al. & Loi et al. & Medford et al., SABCS 2023)
Ongoing studies are investigating opportunities to identify and treat patients with very high risk of recurrence (e.g., DARE and LEADER); serial ctDNA testing in the adjuvant setting may be key to enrolling these trials

Metastatic:

Longitudinal ctDNA testing may serve as a useful tool for detection of progression and monitoring treatment response in patients treated with systemic therapies (Oesterreich et al., SABCS 2023)

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Arielle Medford

Breast Oncologist, Mass General Cancer Center, Harvard Medical School

Arielle Medford, MD, obtained her medical degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She completed internal medicine residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), where she won several awards including the Harvard Medical School Resident Teaching Award and the MGH Humanism in Medicine Award. She subsequently returned to the MGH to serve as Chief Resident. She completed her medical oncology fellowship at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute/Mass General Cancer Center, where she also became a clinical post-doctoral fellow at the Broad Institute of Harvard & MIT. Her research focuses primarily on the clinical-translational applications of circulating tumor DNA in early and advanced breast cancer, and how these tools can be used to lead to more personalized care for individual patients living with breast cancer. Dr. Medford is a recipient of the Young Investigator Award from the ASCO Conquer Cancer Foundation.

Angel Rodriguez

Oncology Medical Director, Natera

Angel Augusto Rodriguez, MD, is a board-certified medical oncologist who specializes in breast medical oncology and conducted clinical research with circulating tumor DNA. Before joining Natera, Dr. Rodriguez practiced at Austin Cancer Centers and Houston Methodist Cancer Center where he was Director of the Clinical Trials Office and the Triple Negative Breast Cancer Clinic. While at Houston Methodist he was the principal investigator of clinical trials and conducted clinical research with circulating tumor DNA.

moderator

John Simmons

Global VP Biopharma, Natera

John Simmons, PhD, currently leads oncology biopharma partnerships at Natera. Before joining Natera, John completed his postdoctoral fellowship at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and served as Vice President of Translational Medicine at Personal Genome Diagnostics (PGDx). He received his PhD in Tumor Biology from Georgetown University.