Breast cancer patients who respond well to presurgical treatment may be able to skip surgery: Study

Patients with a diagnosis early stage breast cancer who had a good response to targeted cancer treatment before surgery – otherwise known as adjuvant therapy – may be able to skip surgery and receive radiation therapy, with little chance of the cancer coming back.

This is according to a new study by researchers s University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, one of the world’s most respected centers dedicated exclusively to the care and research of cancer patients.

“This research adds to the growing body of evidence showing that new drugs can completely eradicate cancer in some cases, and very early results show that we can safely eliminate surgery in this select group of women with breast cancer,” said principal investigator Henry Kuerer, MD. D., in a press release.

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He is a professor of surgical breast oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston, Texas.

The results of the phase II trial were published in Lancet Oncology.

The researchers looked at the probability breast cancer it recurs in patients who were thought to be in complete remission after chemotherapy and radiation without surgery.

Thirty-one of the 50 patients who were followed had a complete response to chemotherapy — and none had breast tumor recurrence after a median follow-up of 26.4 months, according to the study.

Before surgery, patients received specific therapies aimed at cancer and chemotherapy.

“These types of breast cancer usually come back [the] the first couple of years, that is [the] a short follow-up showed promising results,” Dr. Kuerer told Fox News Digital in an interview about the study.

Patients received cancer-specific therapies and chemotherapy prior to surgery, Keuer told Fox News Digital.

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“Patients often undergo surgery first, but these targeted therapies increase survival. So give it first — it shrinks tumors, allowing lumpectomy versus mastectomy,” he said in an interview.

The multicenter study included 50 women over the age of 40 with early-stage triple-negative or HER2-positive breast cancer and residual breast lesions less than 2 centimeters after standard chemotherapy.

If the biopsy did not reveal cancer, breast surgery was not performed and the patients continued with standard radiation treatment.

Patients underwent one image-guided vacuum-assisted biopsy (VACB).

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If the biopsy did not reveal cancer, breast surgery was not performed and the patients continued with standard radiation treatment.

Of the participants, the VACB identified 31 patients with a pathologic complete response — meaning the pathologist does not detect cancer in the tissue where the tumor is located.

“Patients who had a good response to therapy and evidence on imaging that the tumor was responding well — instead of surgery, we used imaging biopsy and skipped surgery in those patients,” Kuerer said.

He also explained that high response rates, combined with selective image-guided VACB and rigorous histology (tissue and cell study), have improved doctors’ ability to identify patients who may not need surgery.

He said the biopsy protocol devised by the MD Anderson Clinic has been shown to be quite accurate in previous research by researchers.

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“We designed, tested and implemented the technique in 2018 and found 98% accuracy in this biopsy protocol,” he said.

Kuerer also cautioned that more research is needed before this process becomes standard of care.

“For now, standard breast cancer surgery is still needed,” Kuerer said.

“While these results are remarkable and quite promising, it is important for patients to know that this is the very beginning of a new type of treatment for selected patients.”

He added: “A lot longer follow-up and further studies will be needed before this approach can be integrated into routine breast cancer care.”

Keurer said researchers will continue to follow these patients to monitor their long-term results.

His team noted that this was a small, nonrandomized study — and that larger randomized studies are needed before changes to the standard of care can be considered.

“This is a very interesting and thought-provoking trial.”

“This is a very interesting and thought-provoking trial,” Sarah P. Cate, MD, told Fox News Digital. and director of the breast surgery quality program at Mount Sinai Health System in New York.

“There are several clinical trials nationally looking at avoiding breast cancer surgery,” said Cate, who was not involved in the study.

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“However, long-term follow-up is needed to extrapolate these trials to the general breast cancer patient and to know that it is safe to offer.”

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Added Cate, who is also the director of the special surveillance and breast program at Mount Sinai Health System, “This trial also had a very small number of patients who were treated without surgery. Changes in the standard of care would involve a much larger trial with many more patients.”