IMPAKT 2012 breast cancer conference to focus on four major areas

"Basic science and clinical medicine move at different pace because they follow different paths. Both however aim at improving strategies to manage cancer patients. We need to efficiently translate the good things from basic science and efficiently implement them in the clinic."

Sherene Loi and Fabrice Andr-, IMPAKT 2012 Co-Chairs

IMPAKT 2012 will focus on four major areas:

• Molecular pathology, the roots of personalized medicine beyond a microscope: emerging data confirms how valuable the role of the initial diagnosis based on the pathology report is and how this can impact treatment decisions
• Prognostic multigene signature consensus: there is a clear need for a consensus opinion on the clinical relevance of the various prognostic signatures used by clinicians to make decisions on how to best treat patients. Top experts in the field will review the available literature and develop guidelines on how genetic signatures should be used
• Triple negative breast cancer, a complex disease which requires intense discussions: how to improve survival of these patients with new drugs and new strategies especially after the failure of promising strategies like PARP inhibitors?
• Tumor heterogeneity and metabolism, pathways to understand how to treat individual patients with new available targets in the era of personalized medicine: clinical implications and an open discussion on the molecular characteristics of cells with distinct phenotypes within the same tumor and on how cancer cells are metabolically rewired

Conference abstracts will be published on Wednesday, 25 April 2012 at 12:00 (CEST) and will be accessible at http://www.esmo.org/events/breast-2012-impakt/program.html

The IMPAKT 2012 Press Program will feature new study results on the following topics:

• Breast cancer, not one disease but many-
• Mucin-1 protein and mRNA expression in breast cancer patients treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy
• Independent blinded validation of the genomic index of Sensitivity to Endocrine Therapy (SET)
• The role of AP-1 in endocrine-resistant breast cancer
• Advances in breast cancer research help choose the right treatment for the right patient
• Gene modules and pathological complete response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in breast cancer: a pooled analysis
• Prognostic significance of progesterone receptor-positive tumor cells within immunohistochemically-defined Luminal A breast cancer
• Translational studies within the TAMRAD randomized GINECO trial: Evidence for TORC1 activation marker as a predictive factor for everolimus efficacy in metastatic breast cancer
• Breast cancer in young women is a biologically unique disease that requires customized management strategies

Highlights on:

• Challenges, clinical perspectives and implications for biomarker and drug development
• Making personalized medicine a reality for breast cancer patients: how to speed up the path for reimbursement
• Intratumor heterogeneity: a challenge for personalized medicine? Can next generation sequencing help solve the problem?
• Towards a further segmentation of triple negative breast cancer?
• Can gene signatures become a standard procedure for daily practice? What's new to predict outcome and drug sensitivity?Thursday, 3 May 2012, 11:00-12:00 (CEST)

Press conference

Hosts:

Martine Piccart, Jules Bordet Institute, Head of Chemotherapy Unit, Brussels, Belgium, IMPAKT Co-Founder

Fabrice Andr-, Institut de Canc-rologie Gustave Roussy, Breast cancer Unit, Department of Medical Oncology, Villejuif, France, IMPAKT2012 Scientific Chair

Sherene Loi, Institute Jules Bordet, Breast International Group (BIG), Brussels, Belgium, IMPAKT2012 Executive Chair

The press conference will highlight the latest advances in breast cancer research that can help improve treatment strategies for breast cancer patients.

The panel features world's leading breast cancer experts.

Source: European Society for Medical Oncology