Dr. Sledge on Using PCR To Determine Therapy Benefit for Breast Cancer

George W. Sledge, Jr., MD, professor of medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine discusses the benefits of using pathological complete response rate (PCR) to understand therapy benefit in breast cancer.

Approvals for adjuvant therapy for patients with early stage breast cancer are typically based on large randomized trials, says Sledge. However, this is not always the most effective method to find treatment options, as these trials tend to be costly and take a long time to determine if patients are receiving clinical benefit.

Using neoadjuvant therapy to look at PCR offer an alternative. PCR can act as a surrogate to determine long-term benefit for disease-free survival and overall survival, explains Sledge.