Charles E. Geyer Jr.
Breast trialist who co-led OlympiA, showing adjuvant olaparib improves survival in BRCA carriers.
Charles Geyer is a medical oncologist and long-time NSABP/NRG leader. Co-chaired OlympiA and led NSABP B-31 analyses of adjuvant trastuzumab and the KATHERINE trial of T-DM1 for residual disease.
| Title | Journal | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Overall survival in the OlympiA phase III trial of adjuvant olaparib in patients with germline pathogenic variants in BRCA1/2 and high-risk, early breast cancer | Annals of Oncology | 2022 |
| Trastuzumab Emtansine for Residual Invasive HER2-Positive Breast Cancer | New England Journal of Medicine | 2019 |
Everyone with HER2-negative early breast cancer that meets high-risk criteria should be offered germline BRCA testing, because a positive result now changes treatment: a year of olaparib after chemotherapy reduces relapse and death. It does not apply to low-risk tumours, HER2-positive disease, or somatic-only BRCA mutations.
HER2-positive breast cancer is now routinely treated before surgery so that the pathology result can guide what comes after: patients with no residual cancer continue trastuzumab (with or without pertuzumab), while those with residual disease switch to T-DM1. This model of using the tumour's response as a test has since been copied in triple-negative and other cancers.