Long-term therapy with Eribulin in a patient with heavily-pretreated metastatic breast cancer – a case report

Introduction: We report the case of a 60-year-old woman with metastatic breast cancer treated with Eribulin as sixth-line chemotherapy. Currently, she receives the 34^th-cycle of Eribulin without any significant side-effects and with the enormous benefit of a stable disease for two years.

Methods: A retrospective review of clinical and treatment data of our patient since the start of Eribulin treatment.

Results: We Chose as sixth-line chemotherapy we chose Eribulin and began with the first cycle on April 23^rd 2012. She receives 1.23 mg/m² Eribulin at day 1 and day 8 repeated every 21 days. Eribulin is injected as an intravenous bolus over 5 minutes.

Currently, she is in her 34^th cycle of Eribulin (d1 on 03/25/2014, d2 on 04/01/2014). The only detectable side effects are fatigue and ocasional asthenia. She received a restaging-CT every three months and during the latest examination on February 12^th 2014 showed a stable disease and no progress of the metastases.

Discussion: The approval of eribulin is based on results of a phase III international multicenter open-label randomized clinical study (EMBRACE trial). The case of our patient confirms the previous reports about Eribulin being a therapeutic option for metastatic breast cancer especially in heavily pretreated patients. To our knowledge, this is the first case of a patient that has been treated successfully with Eribulin for more than two years without any disease progress and no significant side effects.

More data will be reported at the DGGG-Kongress in October 2014.