Difficulties in Treating Patients with Breast Cancer in Russia: the Resolution on the Results of the Review Board

The leading oncologists' meeting was held on February 7, 2014 in Moscow. Those in attendance discussed treatment approaches ofbreast cancer, and in particular, locally-advanced and metastatic breast cancer. Participants came to the conclusion that patients with breast cancer require long treatment by many different chemotherapeutic agents, including some newer ones available. There are no standard approaches to treat patients with metastatic breast cancer after antracyclines and taxanes. Eribulin is a new chemotherapeutic agent that resulted in overall survival improvement in patients with locally advanced and metastatic breast cancer after antracyclines and taxanes. Eribulin is included in the recommendations of Russian oncological professional societies. It is diffcult to specify now a particular group of patients for the treatment of Eribulin so the experts came to conclusion that Eribulin is recommended to patients with metastatic breast cancer according to its prescription. Based on the previous, doctors concluded that it is necessary to increase provision of the breast cancer patients with chemotherapy agents, to include Eribulin in the privileged lists of medications and to use chemotherapeautic agents consistently as a monotherapy in accordance with the latest recommendations, also to legally approve standards of breast cancer treatment that have real clinical value based on the clinical recommendations from said professional societies. Varying practical questions relative to the safety and efficacy of Eribulin were raised during the doctors meeting.