Outcome of eribulin as a late treatment line for Thai metastatic breast cancer patients.

BACKGROUND

We report the safety and efficacy of eribulin as a late treatment line in Thai metastatic breast cancer (MBC) patients.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

A total of 30 MBC patients treated with eribulin between January 2014 and January 2017 were retrospectively analyzed. The patients were scheduled to receive 1.4 mg/m of eribulin on day 1, day 8 and subsequently every 21 days. All patients had previously received at least three chemotherapy regimens including anthracycline and taxane. Response rate and progression-free survival (PFS) were analyzed.

RESULTS

The median age was 56 years (range, 40-74 years), with a median follow-up time of 5.7 months (range, 0.2-25 months). The overall response rate was 30% (nine patients): four patients had triple-negative breast cancer, three patients had luminal B breast cancer and two patients had luminal A breast cancer. The median PFS was 2.9 months (range, 0.2-14 months). The median number of previous chemotherapy regimens was 4 (range, 3-9). Univariate analysis showed that the number of regimens (four or fewer) prior to eribulin was statistically associated with superior PFS ( = 0.009). Multivariate analysis also showed similar statistical association between number of prior regimens (four or fewer) and better PFS adjusted by age group (≥50 years; hazard ratio = 1.29; 95% CI: 1.0-1.65; = 0.046). There were no toxic deaths or grade 4 toxicities. Nine (30%) patients had grade 3 anemia toxicities, and the other common toxicities were leukopenia and neutropenia. Four (13%) patients required dose reduction and 16 (53%) patients required dose delay because of toxicities.

CONCLUSION

Eribulin is an effective drug for heavily pretreated MBC patients with tolerable toxicities. The benefit was superior in patients who received fewer than four previous chemotherapy regimens.