• UCLA Health
  • myUCLAhealth
  • School of Medicine
UCLA Health

UCLA Health
  • About Us
    • What is UCLA Health?
    • Contact Us
    • Your Feedback
    • Accountable Care Organization
    • Awards & Achievements
    • Careers
    • Careers for Physicians
    • Departments - Administrative
    • Departments - Clinical
    • Giving to UCLA Health
    • Health Equity, Diversity & Inclusion
    • In the Community
    • Industry Relations
    • Innovation
    • Leadership
    • News Releases
    • Price Transparency
    • Social Media
    • #TeamLA
    • 340B Program
    Vital SignsLinked Graphic: Subscribe to Health Newsletters
    • Contact
    • Your Feedback
    • Accountable Care Organization
    • Awards and Achievements
    • Careers
    • Careers for Physicians
    • Departments - Administrative
    • Departments - Clinical
    • Giving to UCLA Health
    • Health Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
    • Industry Relations
    • Innovation
    • In the Community
    • 340B Program
    • Leadership
    • News Releases
    • Price Transparency
    • Social Media
    • TeamLA
    • Subscribe to UCLA Health Newsletters
  • Conditions & Treatment
    • Health Library
    • Tests & Procedures
    • Drug Interaction Checker
    • Brain & Nervous System
    • Cancer
    • Children's Health
    • Heart Disease
    • Nutrition & Wellness
    • Pregnancy & Newborns
    • Orthopedics
    • Women's Health
    • Video Library
    • Cancer
    • Cardiovascular
    • Chiropractic
    • Cosmetic Surgery
    • Ear, Nose and Throat
    • Gastrointestinal
    • General Healthcare
    • Neurological
    • Obstetrics/Gynecology
    • See all videos...
    Symptom Checker
    • Video Library
  • Locations

    Hospitals

    • Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center
    • UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center
    • UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital
    • Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital
    • Institutes and Centers
    • Take a Virtual Tour

    Medical Offices/Clinics

    • Primary Care
    • Specialty Care
    • Immediate Care
    • Emergency Care
    • Outpatient Surgery Centers
    • Community Cancer Care
    • Pediatric Locations
    • Imaging/Radiology
    • Clinical Labs
    • Pharmacies

    Interactive Map

    interactive map

    • Interactive Map
    • UCLA Medical Plazas
    • Locations Coming Soon
    • UCLA Hospitals
    • Take a Virtual Tour
    • Primary Care Practices
    • Specialty Care Practices
    • Immediate Care
    • Emergency Care
    • Pediatric Locations
    • Outpatient Surgery Centers
    • Clinical Labs
    • Pharmacies
    • Other Locations
    • Interactive Map
    • Coming Soon!
  • Medical Services
  • For Patients & Visitors
    • Directions & Parking
    • Appointments
    • Video Visits
    • Medical Chaperones
    • Admissions
    • Preparing For Surgery
    • Patient Services
    • Security & Parking Services
    • Office of the Patient Experience
    • For International Patients
    • Lodging & Nearby Services
    • Around Westwood
    • Gift Shops & Flowers
    • Patient Greeting Cards
    • Coronavirus Resources
    • Log in to myUCLAhealth
    • Billing and Insurance
    • Medical Records
    • Price Transparency
    • Health Encyclopedia
    • Interactive Patient Education Videos (Emmi)
    • FAQs
    • Calendar of Events
    • Secure Email Messages
    • Health Resources
    • Multimedia
    • Download our Apps
    • Doctor on video visit
    • Open Enrollment
    • Visit our Connect Blog
    • Send a Care Compliment
    • Read Health Publications
    • Vital Signs Newsletters
    • Join a Patient and Family Advisory Council
    • Share your Feedback
    • Contact Us
    • Appointments: Call, Click, Come in
    • Video Visits - Telemedicine
    • Medical Chaperones
    • Admissions Information
    • Advance Directive
    • Directions & Parking
    • Patient Services
    • Medical Records
    • myUCLAhealth
    • Smoke-Free
    • Publications
    • Multimedia
    • Health Resources
    • Around Westwood
    • Lodging
    • Preparing For Surgery
    • Patient-focused Technology Council
    • Health Forms
    • End of Life Option Act: Resources & Materials
    • Frequently Asked Questions
    • Secure Email Messages
    • Gift Shops
    • Patient Greeting Cards
  • For Healthcare Professionals
    • Referring a Patient
    • Continuing Medical Education
    • Ethics Center
    • UCLA HealthLink
    • Physician to Physician Access Line (P2P)
    • David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
    • Clinical Informatics Fellowship
    • Academic Positions
    • Physician Careers
    • UCLA School of Dentistry
    • UCLA School of Nursing
    • Department of Nursing

    Physician Publications

    • Physicians Update
    • Clinical Updates
    • U Magazine
    • Physician to Physician Access Line (P2P)
    • Physician Careers
    • Clinical Informatics Fellowship
    • Flu Resources for Healthcare Professionals
    • Publications
  • Clinical Research
    • All Clinical Trials
    • COVID-19 Clinical Research
  • Find a Provider
  • UCLA Health
  • myUCLAhealth
  • School of Medicine

News Releases

  1. Home
  2. About Us
  3. News Releases

News Releases

Health and Behavior

Targeted therapy drug helps women with aggressive breast cancer live longer

Drug combination should be first line of treatment, UCLA researchers say

12/11/2019
Dennis Slamon

Senior author Dr. Dennis Slamon says "there is absolutely no reason to wait" to give women treatment that combines ribociclib with hormone therapy.

A study led by UCLA researchers found that adding ribociclib, a targeted therapy drug, to standard hormone therapy significantly improves overall survival in postmenopausal women with advanced hormone-receptor positive/HER2- breast cancer, one of the most common types of the disease.

The findings also show the combination treatment is beneficial at the time of recurrence and should become a first-line option in postmenopausal women with HR+/HER2- advanced breast cancer. The study was published today in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented earlier this year at the European Society for Medical Oncology Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

"Many people argue that the first type of treatment women with this type of metastatic cancer should receive is some other form of hormonal therapy and then wait to see if they respond to that treatment," said senior author Dr. Dennis Slamon, chair of hematology-oncology and director of clinical and translational research at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. "But we found there's a significant difference when you use the combination of ribociclib with hormone therapy as the first line of therapy. There is absolutely no reason to wait to give women this treatment. This should be the new standard."

Ribociclib is a drug that belongs to a class of CDK4/6 inhibitors that works by blocking the activity of proteins called cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 enzymes, which promote cell division and cancer growth.

The current results build upon data previously reported by Slamon and colleagues that ultimately helped lead to the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of ribociclib. There are now three CDK4/6 inhibitors that have been approved by the FDA for combination treatment with standard hormone therapies.

The double-blind clinical trial involved 726 postmenopausal women who had advanced hormone-receptor positive/HER2- breast cancer. The trial included women who had not previously received endocrine therapy as well as women who were in the first-line or second-line setting.

The results demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in survival, with a 28% reduction in risk of death. At 42 months, the estimated rates of survival were 58% for the drug combination treatment and 46% for women who were treated with the hormone therapy alone.

The median progression-free survival with ribociclib in the first-line setting is the longest reported in a phase III trial in hormone-receptor positive/HER2- breast cancer — 33.6 months as compared to 19.2 months for those in the hormone therapy only group.

This is the first demonstration of an overall survival advantage for postmenopausal women, and the second study confirming that the drug increases overall survival — something very few trials are able to accomplish.

"Increasing overall survival is the hardest endpoint to move," Slamon said. "We're also seeing that the time of progression-free survival is the longest yet reported for any of the drugs in this class. And even when patients are off the drug, the effect seems to be long-lasting in terms of the benefit. It's important because this means we are helping women live longer and have a better quality of life."

The team is now evaluating these drugs in women with early-stage breast cancer in an international clinical trial.

The study was sponsored by Novartis, which developed ribociclib at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research under a research collaboration with Astex Pharmaceuticals.



Media Contact
Denise Heady
310-206-2805
dheady@mednet.ucla.edu



Latest News

Health and Behavior
UCLA shares COVID-19 vaccine information with faculty and staff
01/15/2021
Members of the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Task Force updated faculty and staff on the progress of UCLA Health's vaccination program and to take questions.

Health and Behavior
In lab study, nanoparticle shows promising results for treating severe allergies
01/14/2021
A UCLA research team developed a possible way to impart long-term relief by inducing an active state of immune tolerance.

Health and Behavior
Cancer researchers awarded grant to study genomic alterations in prostate cancer
01/12/2021
Paul Boutros, PhD, Robert Reiter, MD, and Huihui Ye, MD, MS, of the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have received the 2020 Prostate Cancer Foundation Special Challenge Award to help improve the understanding of prostate cancer biology and identify new ways to help prevent, diagnose, prognose and treat lethal prostate cancer.

Health and Behavior
UCLA scientists develop method to more efficiently isolate and identify rare T cells
01/11/2021
Scientists from the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA have developed a technique that will enable researchers to more efficiently isolate and identify rare T cells that are capable of targeting viruses, cancer and other diseases.

Health and Behavior
MRI frequently underestimates tumor size in prostate cancer
01/07/2021
Research brief: Improving imaging processes will lead to more successful treatments and help reduce morbidity in men with the disease.

Facebook Twitter Instagram Youtube LinkedInWeibo
UCLA Health hospitals ranked best hospitals by U.S. News & World Report
  • UCLA Health
  • Find a Doctor
  • School of Medicine
  • School of Nursing
  • UCLA Campus
  • Directory
  • Newsroom
  • Subscribe
  • Patient Stories
  • Giving
  • Careers
  • Volunteer
  • International Services
  • Privacy Practices
  • Nondiscrimination
  • Billing
  • Health Plans
  • Emergency
  • Report Broken Links
  • Terms of Use
  • 1-310-825-2631
  • Maps & Directions
  • Contact Us
  • Your Feedback
  • Report Misconduct
  • Get Social
  • Sitemap

Sign in to myUCLAhealth

Learn more about myUCLAhealth