Research saves lives
Since the creation of the not-for-profit in 1999, more than 50 trials have been run under the BIG umbrella, including several landmark trials that have had a real impact on breast cancer treatments and the lives of patients affected by the disease.
Dr. Martine Piccart : "With the incredibly powerful and fascinating technologies under development today, there is a real risk to get « lost in translation ». I believe that we need to put ourselves in our patients’ shoes and focus on issues that matter to them, such as identifying and validating biomarkers that could be linked to an excellent clinical outcome without treatment escalation."

Patients’ needs at the heart of our activities
MINDACT trial, 46% could be spared chemotherapy

The first results of the MINDACT trial give hope to many women with early-stage breast cancer: in future, it is possible that up to 46% of patients who would have received chemotherapy in the past can be spared this treatment and its side effects.
The results of this trial can help doctors identify which women need chemotherapy due to the tumour aggressiveness and which women can be spared this additional treatment after surgery.
Read moreSOFT & TEXT trials, reducing risk by 35% for young women
The SOFT and TEXT trials, together involving over 5700 patients, indicated that young women with early, hormone-sensitive breast cancer benefit from adding ovarian suppression to the standard treatment with tamoxifen after surgery.
Together, these studies were also the first to demonstrate that taking exemestane, an oral aromatase inhibitor drug, along with blocking ovarian function, reduces cancer recurrence. These practice-changing results provide a new treatment option for young women with hormone-sensitive breast cancer.
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Aromatase inhibitors, providing more options to breast cancer patients

Three studies conducted under the BIG umbrella, together recruiting a total of 17.958 patients, contributed to the body of evidence that aromatase inhibitors could be used as a safe alternative to tamoxifen, a drug used to treat oestrogen receptor (ER) positive breast cancer that is associated with dangerous side effects for some women. Not only did these trials prove the effectiveness of the new drugs, but they also answered important additional questions about whether the drugs should be given in combination or in sequence with others, the likelihood of side effects with long-term use, and patients’ overall quality of life.
HERA trial, cutting relapse rates by 50%

Recruiting 5100 women from 480 sites across 39 countries in just over four years – in itself a remarkable achievement – HERA contributed to a new standard of treatment for women with HER2-positive, early breast cancer, a highly aggressive form of the disease. HERA helped accelerate the approval of a drug, trastuzumab, that has cut relapse rates by 50% and is now the standard treatment for this type of breast cancer.