Abstract
BACKGROUND
Fulvestrant is a selective oestrogen receptor down-regulator (SERD), which by blocking proliferation of breast cancer cells, is an effective endocrine treatment for women with hormone-sensitive advanced breast cancer. The goal of such systemic therapy in this setting is to reduce symptoms, improve quality of life, and increase survival time.
OBJECTIVES
To assess the efficacy and safety of fulvestrant for hormone-sensitive locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer in postmenopausal women, as compared to other standard endocrine agents.
SEARCH METHODS
We searched the Cochrane Breast Cancer Specialised Register, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), MEDLINE, EMBASE, the World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (WHO ICTRP), and ClinicalTrials.gov on 7 July 2015. We also searched major conference proceedings (American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium) and practice guidelines from major oncology groups (ASCO, European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO), National Comprehensive Cancer Network, and Cancer Care Ontario). We handsearched reference lists from relevant studies.
SELECTION CRITERIA
We included for analyses randomised controlled trials that enrolled postmenopausal women with hormone-sensitive advanced breast cancer (TNM classifications: stages IIIA, IIIB, and IIIC) or metastatic breast cancer (TNM classification: stage IV) with an intervention group treated with fulvestrant with or without other standard anticancer therapy.
DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Two review authors independently extracted data from trials identified in the searches, conducted 'Risk of bias' assessments of the included studies, and assessed the overall quality of the evidence using the GRADE approach. Outcome data extracted from these trials for our analyses and review included progression-free survival (PFS) or time to progression (TTP) or time to treatment failure, overall survival, clinical benefit rate, toxicity, and quality of life. We used the fixed-effect model for meta-analysis where possible.
MAIN RESULTS
We included nine studies randomising 4514 women for meta-analysis and review. Overall results for the primary endpoint of PFS indicated that women receiving fulvestrant did at least as well as the control groups (hazard ratio (HR) 0.95, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.89 to 1.02; P = 0.18, I2= 56%, 4258 women, 9 studies, high-quality evidence). In the one high-quality study that tested fulvestrant at the currently approved and now standard dose of 500 mg against anastrozole, women treated with fulvestrant 500 mg did better than anastrozole, with a HR for TTP of 0.66 (95% CI 0.47 to 0.93; 205 women) and a HR for overall survival of 0.70 (95% CI 0.50 to 0.98; 205 women). There was no difference in PFS whether fulvestrant was used in combination with another endocrine therapy or in the first- or second-line setting, when compared to control treatments: for monotherapy HR 0.97 (95% CI 0.90 to 1.04) versus HR 0.87 (95% CI 0.77 to 0.99) for combination therapy when compared to control, and HR 0.93 (95% CI 0.84 to 1.03) in the first-line setting and HR 0.96 (95% CI 0.88 to 1.04) in the second-line setting.Overall, there was no difference between fulvestrant and control treatments in clinical benefit rate (risk ratio (RR) 1.03, 95% CI 0.97 to 1.10; P = 0.29, I2 = 24%, 4105 women, 9 studies, high-quality evidence) or overall survival (HR 0.97, 95% CI 0.87 to 1.09, P = 0.62, I2 = 66%, 2480 women, 5 studies, high-quality evidence). There was no significant difference in vasomotor toxicity (RR 1.02, 95% CI 0.89 to 1.18, 3544 women, 8 studies, high-quality evidence), arthralgia (RR 0.96, 95% CI 0.86 to 1.09, 3244 women, 7 studies, high-quality evidence), and gynaecological toxicities (RR 1.22, 95% CI 0.94 to 1.57, 2848 women, 6 studies, high-quality evidence). Four studies reported quality of life, none of which reported a difference between the fulvestrant and control arms, though specific data were not presented.
AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
For postmenopausal women with advanced hormone-sensitive breast cancer, fulvestrant is at least as effective and safe as the comparator endocrine therapies in the included studies. However, fulvestrant may be potentially more effective than current therapies when given at 500 mg, though this higher dosage was used in only one of the nine studies included in the review. We saw no advantage with combination therapy, and fulvestrant was equally as effective as control therapies in both the first- and second-line setting. Our review demonstrates that fulvestrant is a safe and effective systemic therapy and can be considered as a valid option in the sequence of treatments for postmenopausal women with hormone-sensitive advanced breast cancer.
Collapse