Purpose: This study aims to comprehensively evaluate the clinical efficacy of chemotherapy or endocrine therapy maintenance in metastatic breast cancer (MBC) patients.
Materials and methods: The meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) and propensity score matching of multicenter cohort study evaluated MBC patients who underwent first-line chemotherapy or endocrine therapy maintenance. This study is registered with PROSPERO: CRD42017071858 and ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT04258163.
Results: A total of 2,867 patients from 15 RCTs and 760 patients from multicenter cohort were included. The results from meta-analysis showed that chemotherapy maintenance improved progression-free survival (PFS) (hazard ratio [HR], 0.63; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.54 to 0.73; p < 0.001; moderate-quality evidence) and overall survival (OS) (HR, 0.87; 95% CI 0.78 to 0.97; p=0.016; high-quality evidence) than observation. In the cohort study, for hormone receptor-positive MBC patients, chemotherapy maintenance improved PFS (HR, 0.67; 95% CI, 0.52 to 0.85; p < 0.001) and OS (HR, 0.55; 95% CI 0.42 to 0.73; p < 0.001) compared with observation, and endocrine therapy maintenance also improved PFS (HR, 0.65; 95% CI, 0.53 to 0.80; p < 0.001) and OS (HR, 0.55; 95% CI, 0.44 to 0.69; p < 0.001). There were no differences between chemotherapy and endocrine therapy maintenance in PFS and OS (all p > 0.05). Regardless of the continuum or switch maintenance therapy, showed prolonged survival in MBC patients who were response to first-line treatment.
Conclusion: This study provided evidences for survival benefits of chemotherapy and endocrine therapy maintenance in MBC patients, and there was no difference efficacy between chemotherapy and endocrine therapy maintenance for hormone receptor-positive patients.
Keywords: Chemotherapy; Endocrine therapy; Metastatic breast neoplasms; Overall survival; Progression-free survival.