ArticleBreast cancer research and treatment2026
Comparative effectiveness of CDK4/6 inhibitors in metastatic breast cancer: using the target trial emulation framework to investigate overall survival in routine care.
Article in Breast cancer research and treatment, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Review
- Molecular Profiling and Targeted Therapeutic Strategies in Breast Cancer: Clinical Integration of HER2, CDK4/6, and PI3K Inhibition with Trastuzumab, Abemaciclib and Alpelisib.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Review
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeCyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 inhibitor (CDK4/6i) plus aromatase inhibitor (AI) is the recommended first-line treatment for hormone receptor-positive/human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-negative metastatic breast cancer (mBC). CDK4/6i head-to-head trials have not been conducted, and randomized controlled trials (RCTs) report inconsistent overall survival (OS) results despite similar effects on the primary endpoint of progression-free survival. Real-world evidence can complement RCTs but selection biases and confounders can challenge interpretation. Target trial emulation applies the principles of RCTs to observational data to overcome such challenges. We emulated a hypothetical target trial to investigate whether causal differences in OS between patients receiving first-line CDK4/6i plus AI exist in the real-world clinical setting.
methodsWe used de-identified data (Flatiron Health mBC Enhanced Data Mart) from patients ≥ 18 years old at primary diagnosis who were treated with first-line palbociclib/ribociclib/abemaciclib plus AI for mBC between 2018 and 2024. Statistical adjustments included stabilized inverse-probability weighting (sIPTW), investigation of missing data mechanisms, and analyses for unmeasured confounders.
results2626 patients were included (palbociclib n = 1686; ribociclib n = 537; abemaciclib n = 403). After sIPTW, baseline characteristics were balanced between groups and there was no observable difference in real-world OS (ribociclib vs palbociclib, adjusted hazard ratio 1.00, 95% CI: 0.81-1.24; abemaciclib v palbociclib: 0.91, 95% CI: 0.74-1.14). Results were consistent after sensitivity analyses.
conclusionUsing target trial emulation, real-world OS is similar with palbociclib/ribociclib/abemaciclib plus AI. These findings may contribute to the development of combination strategies to improve clinical outcomes and to guide clinical decision-making.
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