While the majority of the presentations at this year’s San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, to be held Dec. 4-8, will focus on treatments, a few will focus on the treatment decisions. One such presentation will report on the findings of the phase 3 STIC CTC trial. This trial seeks to determine if circulating tumor cells (CTC) could serve as a tool to choose between first-line hormone therapy and chemotherapy for ER-positive HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer.
In the standard arm of the trial, treatment was decided by clinicians, taking into account the criteria usually used in this setting. In the CTC arm, the type of treatment was decided by CTC count: Hormone-therapy was chosen if there were fewer than 5 CTC/7.5 mL (CellSearch technique) or chemotherapy if there were 5 or more CTC/7.5 mL. The main objective was to demonstrate the noninferiority of the CTC-based strategy for progression-free survival. The secondary clinical objectives of the French trial were to compare toxicity, quality of life, and overall survival between the two arms. The cost per progression-free life-years gained will be compared in the two arms, as well.
The results and analysis of STIC CTC will be presented by Francois-Clement Bidard, MD, PhD, of Institut Curie, Paris, and the University of Versailles (France), on Thursday, Dec. 6 at 11 a.m. CST.