Abemaciclib Dose Escalation in Early High-Risk Breast Cancer Adjuvant Therapy

Summary

Abemaciclib combined with endocrine therapy has become one of the important adjuvant treatment regimens for patients with HR+/HER2- high-risk early breast cancer. However, adverse events such as diarrhea, fatigue, neutropenia and elevated liver enzymes are concentrated in the early stage of adjuvant therapy, which often lead to dose reduction, temporary drug interruption or even permanent discontinuation. This further affects treatment adherence, relative dose intensity (RDI) and treatment completion rate. Findings from the TRADE study suggest that a step-up dosing strategy, initiating at a lower dose followed by gradual titration to the standard dose, combined with standardized patient education and symptomatic management, may improve early treatment tolerance, reduce the burden of partial toxicities, and increase the likelihood of patients achieving and maintaining abemaciclib 150 mg twice daily. Based on the above evidence and clinical experience, step-up dosing has been adopted by some clinicians for real-world clinical practice. Nevertheless, existing evidence is mainly derived from non-Chinese populations. There is still a lack of systematic real-world data on step-up dosing among Chinese breast cancer patients under routine outpatient management, including the early toxicity profile, dose escalation achievement rate at each stage, dose adjustment pathways (prolonged escalation, treatment pause or dose de-escalation), RDI distribution, correlation with quality of life, and baseline factors affecting treatment tolerance and dose target attainment. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct a real-world study focused on Chinese patients to fill the gap in local clinical evidence, and provide a basis for clinical pathway formulation, patient education, and subsequent multicenter validation studies.

Timeline

Start

2026-05-30

Primary completion

2027-12-30

Completion

2028-02-01

Publications

• Background Mayer EL, Trapani D, Kim SE, Faggen M, Sinclair N, Sanz-Altamira P, Battelli C, Berwick S, Lo S, Acevedo J, Sinclair S, Malcolm A, Varella L, Sammons S, Schumer S, Poorvu PD, Wallace E, Pasternak E, Tayob N, Tolaney SM. TRADE: a phase II trial to assess the tolerability of abemaciclib dose escalation in early-stage HR-positive/HER2-negative breast cancer. Ann Oncol. 2026 Jan;37(1):117-124. doi: 10.1016/j.annonc.2025.09.141. Epub 2025 Oct 17.
• Background Goetz MP, Cicin I, Testa L, Tolaney SM, Huober J, Guarneri V, Johnston SRD, Martin M, Rastogi P, Harbeck N, Shahir A, Wei R, Andre V, Rugo HS, O'Shaughnessy J. Impact of dose reductions on adjuvant abemaciclib efficacy for patients with high-risk early breast cancer: analyses from the monarchE study. NPJ Breast Cancer. 2024 Apr 26;10(1):34. doi: 10.1038/s41523-024-00639-1.
• Background Johnston SRD, Toi M, O'Shaughnessy J, Rastogi P, Campone M, Neven P, Huang CS, Huober J, Jaliffe GG, Cicin I, Tolaney SM, Goetz MP, Rugo HS, Senkus E, Testa L, Del Mastro L, Shimizu C, Wei R, Shahir A, Munoz M, San Antonio B, Andre V, Harbeck N, Martin M; monarchE Committee Members. Abemaciclib plus endocrine therapy for hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative, node-positive, high-risk early breast cancer (monarchE): results from a preplanned interim analysis of a randomised, open-label, phase 3 trial. Lancet Oncol. 2023 Jan;24(1):77-90. doi: 10.1016/S1470-2045(22)00694-5. Epub 2022 Dec 6.
• Background Johnston SRD, Harbeck N, Hegg R, Toi M, Martin M, Shao ZM, Zhang QY, Martinez Rodriguez JL, Campone M, Hamilton E, Sohn J, Guarneri V, Okada M, Boyle F, Neven P, Cortes J, Huober J, Wardley A, Tolaney SM, Cicin I, Smith IC, Frenzel M, Headley D, Wei R, San Antonio B, Hulstijn M, Cox J, O'Shaughnessy J, Rastogi P; monarchE Committee Members and Investigators. Abemaciclib Combined With Endocrine Therapy for the Adjuvant Treatment of HR+, HER2-, Node-Positive, High-Risk, Early Breast Cancer (monarchE). J Clin Oncol. 2020 Dec 1;38(34):3987-3998. doi: 10.1200/JCO.20.02514. Epub 2020 Sep 20.

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