Kathleen Pritchard
Breast cancer medical oncologist at Sunnybrook in Toronto, professor emerita at the University of Toronto and long-time leader of breast cancer trials, co-author of the BOLERO-2 everolimus trial
Medical oncologist, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre · Professor Emerita, Department of Medicine and Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto · chair, later co-chair, Breast Site Committee, Canadian Cancer Trials Group · founding member (1984) and co-chair (since 2000), Early Breast Cancer Trialists' Collaborative Group · Order of Canada (2017)
Portrait: Sunnybrook Research Institute
Kathleen Pritchard is a co-author of both main reports of BOLERO-2 in this Atlas. BOLERO-2 was a phase 3 trial in 724 postmenopausal women with hormone-receptor-positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer that had kept growing despite an aromatase inhibitor, a type of hormone therapy (BAS2012, PIC2014). All the women took the hormone drug exemestane; half also took everolimus, a rapamycin-like drug that blocks mTORC1, the cell's growth-control complex. Resistance to hormone therapy in these cancers is linked to overactive mTOR signalling, and adding everolimus more than doubled the time before the cancer grew again (10.6 versus 4.1 months by central review in the first report). That result led to the approval of everolimus for this use. The final report (PIC2014) confirmed the gain in progression-free survival, but overall survival was not significantly longer: median 31.0 versus 26.6 months. The main side effect was mouth sores (stomatitis).
For the mTOR story the trial is a landmark: it was the first large test showing that blocking mTORC1 helps patients with a common cancer, and it also shows the limits, a delay in tumour growth without a clear gain in overall survival.
Pritchard is a medical oncologist at Sunnybrook in Toronto and professor emerita in the Department of Medicine and the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. She chaired and later co-chaired the breast cancer committee of the Canadian Cancer Trials Group and has guided many multi-centre breast cancer trials in Canada and abroad. She was a founding member in 1984, and since 2000 co-chair, of the Early Breast Cancer Trialists' Collaborative Group, which pools the raw data of randomised trials worldwide to measure how well breast cancer treatments work. PubMed lists close to 190 papers with her name and a Toronto affiliation, most of them on breast cancer trials and treatment outcomes, including the 2015 analysis of which tumour gene changes predicted benefit from everolimus in BOLERO-2. In 2017 she was appointed to the Order of Canada for her contributions to the treatment of breast cancer in women.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2012 | H | Everolimus in postmenopausal hormone-receptor-positive advanced breast cancer (BOLERO-2) BAS2012 Co-author of the primary BOLERO-2 report, in which adding everolimus to exemestane more than doubled progression-free survival. |
| 2014 | H | Everolimus plus exemestane for hormone-receptor-positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor-2-negative advanced breast cancer: overall survival results from BOLERO-2† PIC2014 Co-author of the final BOLERO-2 analysis, which confirmed the progression-free survival gain but found no significant overall survival benefit. |
Co-authors in the Atlas 14
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Kathleen Pritchard.
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- Alejandra Perez 2 shared studies Breast cancer oncologist in South Florida who enrolled patients in BOLERO-2, the trial that brought the mTOR inhibitor everolimus into breast cancer treatment
- Fabienne Lebrun 2 shared studies Medical oncologist at the Institut Jules Bordet in Brussels and a co-author of the BOLERO-2 trial reports that brought the mTOR inhibitor everolimus into breast cancer care
- Gabriel N. Hortobagyi 2 shared studies Breast cancer physician-scientist and senior author of BOLERO-2, the phase 3 trial that showed adding the mTOR inhibitor everolimus improves outcomes in advanced hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer
- Hope Rugo 2 shared studies Breast cancer oncologist and clinical trialist, long at UCSF, who helped run BOLERO-2 and studied how to manage the side effects of mTOR inhibitors such as everolimus
- Ines Deleu 2 shared studies Medical oncologist in Sint-Niklaas, Belgium, who enrolled patients in international breast cancer drug trials, including the BOLERO-2 trial of everolimus
- José Baselga 2 shared studies Breast cancer oncologist who led the BOLERO-2 trial showing that the mTOR inhibitor everolimus added to hormone therapy lengthens progression-free survival
- Mario Campone 2 shared studies Breast cancer oncologist and general director of the Institut de Cancérologie de l'Ouest, a co-investigator on the BOLERO-2 trial that brought everolimus into breast cancer care
- Martine J. Piccart 2 shared studies Breast cancer oncologist who co-founded the Breast International Group and has led or co-led major academic trials such as HERA, MINDACT and ALTTO.
- Michael Gnant 2 shared studies Surgical oncologist and breast cancer trialist, Professor of Surgery at the Medical University of Vienna and President of the Austrian Breast and Colorectal Cancer Study Group, and a co-author of BOLERO-2, the trial that brought the mTOR inhibitor everolimus into breast cancer treatment
- Shinzaburo Noguchi 2 shared studies Breast cancer surgeon and researcher at Osaka University and a co-investigator of BOLERO-2, the trial that brought the mTOR inhibitor everolimus into breast cancer treatment
- Yoshinori Ito 2 shared studies Breast medical oncologist at the Cancer Institute Hospital in Tokyo and a co-investigator of BOLERO-2, the trial that brought the mTOR inhibitor everolimus into breast cancer treatment
- David Lebwohl Medical oncologist and drug developer who led the clinical development of everolimus (Afinitor) at Novartis through approvals in several cancers and tuberous sclerosis, and later served as Chief Medical Officer of the gene-editing company Intellia Therapeutics
- Howard A Burris Medical oncologist who led the Sarah Cannon Research Institute in Nashville as President and Chief Medical Officer, has run hundreds of early-phase cancer drug trials, including the first trial of the mTORC1-selective inhibitor RMC-5552, and was ASCO President in 2019–2020
- Tarek Sahmoud Physician and epidemiologist who worked as a clinical program head in Novartis oncology drug development during the everolimus trials, and later as chief medical officer at several cancer drug companies
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