Background Eribulin is a new drug against metastatic breast cancer, one of the most common cancers in women

Purpose To study the effectiveness and safety of treatment with eribulin in metastatic breast cancer in patients who have been treated with at least two processing lines including anthracyclines and taxanes

Materials and methods Retrospective descriptive study of patients who received eribulin from marketing until September 2013.

Variables examined: sex, age, hormone receptor and lines of treatment prior to HER-2, progression-free survival (PFS) and adverse reactions (RA).

Source of data: history and pharmaceutical validation program Farmis-Oncofarm.

Results We included 26 female patients with a median age of 57 years, 22 (84.6%) hormone-sensitive and 20 (77%) HER-2 negative. Median prior lines of treatment were 5. Of the 26 patients, 23 had previously been treated with capecitabine, and drug median PFS was 140 days.

The median number of eribulin cycles received was 6 and the median PFS was 137 days (range 31–663 days).

Regarding safety, 18 (61.5%) patients experienced 36 RA Grade 1 or 2 and 6 grade 3 or 4 (G3/G4). The RA found were: asthenia 10 (1 G3/4), gastrointestinal disorders 10 (2 G3/G4), neuropathy 4 (1 G3/G4), anaemia 4 (1 G3/G4), skin disorders and/or alopecia 4 (1 G3/G4), neutropenia 3 and liver disorders 1 G3/4. Five patients had their dose reduced to 0.97 mg/m². All patients received prophylactic G-CSF to reduce hematologic toxicity.

Conclusions In the EUPHORIA study (presented in ASCO 2013). 104 patients were treated (64.4% hormone-sensitive). The median PFS was 97 days (3 months) With regard to the most frequent adverse reactions were similar to those in this study.

The effectiveness results obtained in this study are consistent with those reported in the pivotal clinical trials (133 days, 3,8 months). The PFS of EUPHORIA study may be lower because the lower rate of hormone-sensitive patients.

Moreover, the patients who have been treated with capecitabine and eribulin exhibit similar PFS.

Given the effectiveness and safety of the drug, treatment should be evaluated with other cytostatic drugs with better cost-effectiveness profile-security such as capecitabine.

No conflict of interest.