Background Eribulin has been approved for locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer after at least one previous chemotherapy regimen for advanced disease, including an anthracycline and a taxane.

Purpose To evaluate the effectiveness and safety of eribulin in a tertiary-level hospital.

Material and methods A retrospective observational study was conducted. We included patients treated with eribulin from 1 February 2014 to 11 October 2017.

Following variables were recorded age, number of cycles, duration of treatment, number and type of previous chemotherapy regimens, progression-free survival (PFS), reported adverse events (AEs), dose reductions and dose delays between cycles.

We obtained data from electronic clinical records and the chemotherapy management software.

Results Twenty-four patients were included, mean age 50.9 years (SD 9.4, range 32–67). As the data analysis showed, four patients were still in treatment with eribulin and 20 had finished it, with a median duration of 3.15 months (4.5 cycles, range 1–8).

Patients had a median of three previous chemotherapy lines in the locally advanced or metastatic stage, in the range 1–6. Most common regimens used before eribulin in metastatic disease were: albumin-bound paclitaxel (54.2%), non-pegylated liposomal doxorubicin (50%), paclitaxel +bevacizumab (37.5%), cisplatin +gemcitabine (20.8%), capecitabine (20.8%), vinorelbine (20.8%), docetaxel monotherapy (16.7%), pegylated liposomal doxorubicin (12.5%), epirubicin +docetaxel (12.5%) and paclitaxel monotherapy (8.3%), being less frequent than other regimens.

Median PFS in the 17 patients who progressed during or after eribulin (but without having received a later treatment) was 2.8 months.

62.5% of patients had an AE during treatment. The most frequent were: asthaenia (37.5%), neuropathy (33.3%), joint pain (20.8%), mucositis (12.5%), neutropaenia (12.5%), infection (8.3%), constipation (8.3%), sickness (8.3%) and epigastric pain (8.3%). one patient interrupted the treatment due to AEs.

In patients who finished their treatment, there were two delays because of neutropenia and three dose reductions due to toxicity.

Conclusion In our patients, eribulin median PFS was lower than in the EMBRACE trial. This could be explained because our patients received more previous regimens of chemotherapy for metastatic disease. In addition, our sample size was smaller.

Regarding safety, eribulin was well tolerated and in most cases the AEs did not force an interruption to treatment.

No conflict of interest