In Australia, the approval of eribulin was based on the results of a study called EMBRACE. Another study called the 301 trial compared eribulin to another treatment called capecitabine in patients who had received fewer prior treatments. In this trial, eribulin didn’t show clear superiority. However, when the data from both EMBRACE and the 301 trial were combined, eribulin was found to provide a survival benefit.

Considering this evidence, it’s likely that using eribulin as a later treatment option in patients with advanced breast cancer might not provide as much benefit. The data suggests that eribulin works best in patients who haven’t had as many rounds of chemotherapy, and giving other treatments like capecitabine or vinorelbine before eribulin doesn’t seem to improve survival.

The goal of this study was to examine how eribulin is used and how effective it is in patients with metastatic breast cancer in Australia.

We conducted a retrospective analysis of consecutive patients with metastatic breast cancer who were treated with eribulin at major breast cancer centers in Australia. To be included in the study, patients needed to have received eribulin outside of a clinical trial setting starting from October 2014 onwards. We also required information about the duration of other systemic treatments for metastatic breast cancer that the patients had received, as well as the date when they were followed up after receiving eribulin. To evaluate survival outcomes, we employed a statistical method called the Cox regression model.

The study found that eribulin showed comparable effectiveness across all subtypes of metastatic breast cancer, whether it was used as the initial treatment or in later lines of chemotherapy, ranging from the first to beyond the fifth line.