An early breast cancer diagnosis can create an important opportunity to understand how a tumor responds while treatment is underway, what risk may remain, and how those insights could inform future research.
This opportunity is helping shape an important area of breast cancer research—one that is focused not only on treating early-stage disease with curative intent, but on learning from each step of the treatment journey.
Earlier Does Not Mean Risk-Free
Early breast cancer generally refers to cancer that is confined to the breast and, in some cases, nearby lymph nodes, without having spread to other parts of the body. Treatment is given with curative intent and may include surgery, radiation therapy, and systemic treatments such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy, or other targeted approaches, depending on the cancer subtype and individual risk. Yet, even when breast cancer is diagnosed early, treatment challenges can remain, including the risk of recurrence.
Understanding that ongoing risk and how it might be addressed remain important focuses of research.
Joseph Cheng Associate Director, US Medical Affairs
“While early breast cancer is often treated with curative intent, the risk of recurrence remains an important concern. Once the disease progresses to the metastatic setting, treatment goals can change significantly. This underscores the importance of advancing research earlier in the disease journey, including innovative approaches such as antibody-drug conjugates and bispecific antibodies that may help reduce the risk of recurrence. Additionally, biomarker research is helping us better understand which treatments may be most appropriate for different patients and identify new opportunities to improve outcomes.”
What Treatment Before Surgery Can Reveal
For some patients with early breast cancer, systemic treatment is given before surgery, an approach known as neoadjuvant therapy.
Treating the cancer while the tumor is present creates an opportunity to observe how it responds. At surgery, the tissue that is removed can provide additional information, including whether invasive disease remains after treatment.
In this way, treatment before surgery can do more than address the disease. It can also help researchers understand tumor response at a point when the goal of treatment is still cure. For patients, understanding how their cancer responds to treatment and what remains after surgery can provide important information about the risk of recurrence and help guide treatment decisions.
Learning From What Remains
When invasive cancer remains in the breast or nearby lymph nodes following neoadjuvant treatment, it is known as residual invasive disease. Its presence can be associated with an increased risk of recurrence.
That risk matters. For some patients, the cancer can return to another part of the body. This is commonly known as metastatic or distant recurrence and can lead to poor outcomes.
Identifying residual disease can therefore provide important information about a patient’s ongoing risk of recurrence and subsequent treatment considerations after surgery.
For researchers, these insights can help bring an important need into focus: improving care for patients whose disease may be more likely to return after initial treatment.
This need is one reason why researchers continue to evaluate whether scientific advances first studied in later-stage disease may also have a role earlier in the breast cancer journey
Bringing Innovation into Earlier Stages
As the science of breast cancer has evolved, research has continued across the various stages of disease.
One rapidly developing and increasingly prominent area of cancer research is antibody drug conjugates, or ADCs. These therapies are designed to deliver a therapeutic payload to cancer cells that express a specific target. We are now investigating ADCs in early breast cancer, including settings where treatment is delivered with curative intent.
Julie Jeanes Vice President, Global Team Lead Oncology R&D
“The growing focus on early breast cancer reflects an opportunity to make a meaningful difference for patients earlier in their treatment journey. When breast cancer is identified and treated before it spreads, treatment can be delivered with curative intent, while research continues to uncover new ways to reduce the risk of recurrence and improve long-term outcomes for more patients.”
The investigation in earlier-stage disease reflects a broader scientific question: How might advances in breast cancer research have relevance at different points in the disease journey, where treatment goals, unmet needs, and opportunities to learn may be different?
Pursuing Innovation Across the Breast Cancer Journey
Every advance in breast cancer research can open new possibilities for patients; however, there is still more work to do.
At Daiichi Sankyo, our commitment to patients with breast cancer extends across the disease journey. Building on our experience in breast cancer, we are pursuing research in earlier stages of disease and continuing to explore new treatment options to address unmet needs.
By continuing to follow the science across stages of breast cancer, we hope to deepen understanding of the disease to advance research and ultimately create new standards of care for even more patients and their loved ones.
Explore even more innovation here: https://daiichisankyo.us/our-stories/-/categories/44213?p_r_p_categoryId=44213#entries-list
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