Dr. Shih on Treating Lobular vs Ductal Breast Cancers

Jennifer Yuchen Shih, MD, a medical oncologist at Fox Chase Cancer Center, discusses the ABCSG-8 and BIG 1-98 studies and their impacts on the treatment of lobular breast cancer compared to ductal breast cancers.

The ABCSG-8 study, which looked at the sequence strategy containing anastrozole in comparison with 5 years of tamoxifen in postmenopausal patients, was completed several years ago. The BIG 1-98 study group was a follow-up to the ABCSG-8 study and validated the ABCSG-8 findings that aromatase inhibitors are superior to tamoxifen in both lobular and ductal breast cancers.

In addition, the BIG 1-98 study subdivided the lobular patients into two molecular subtypes: luminal A and luminal B. They found that in luminal A patients, those with ductile cancer benefited more from anastrozole, while in luminal B patients, those with lobular cancer benefited more from anastrozole than those with ductile cancer.