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How effective is Trodelvy and what's the success rate?

Medically reviewed by Carmen Pope, BPharm. Last updated on May 28, 2025.

Official Answer by Drugs.com

Does Trodelvy shrink tumors?

Trodelvy (sacituzumab govitecan-hziy) is a targeted chemotherapy drug that may be used to treat the following cancers that have spread (metastasized) or cannot be removed by surgery:

Treatment with Trodelvy aims to increase the length of time a patient lives, and also how long they live without their cancer progressing. For most of these cancers, few other treatments are available.

How effective is Trodelvy for triple-negative breast cancer?

In patients with TNBC, whose cancer had not spread to the brain, treatment with Trodelvy resulted in significantly longer progression-free survival (5.6 vs. 1.7 months) and overall survival (12.1 vs. 6.7 months) compared with patients treated with the physician’s choice of single-agent chemotherapy (eribulin, vinorelbine, capecitabine, or gemcitabine), according to the results of the phase III ASCENT trial.

More of the patients in the ASCENT trial treated with Trodelvy also successfully responded to treatment compared with patients who received single-agent chemotherapy (35 vs. 5 percent). In a separate study called IMMU-132-01, which enrolled 108 patients with TNBC who had received between 2 and 10 previous treatments, 33.3 percent of patients responded to treatment with Trodelvy. Median progression-free survival and overall survival in these patients was 5.5 and 13 months, respectively.

How effective is Trodelvy for pre-treated HR+/HER2- metastatic breast cancer?

A statistically significant and clinically meaningful overall survival (OS) benefit of 3.2 months was reported for Trodelvy vs. single-agent chemotherapy (treatment of physician’s choice; TPC) (median OS: 14.4 months vs. 11.2 months; hazard ratio [HR]=0.79; 95% CI: 0.65-0.96; p=0.02) in the TROPiCS-02 study. Trodelvy also demonstrated a 34% reduction in risk of disease progression or death (median PFS: 5.5 versus 4.0 months; HR: 0.66; 95% CI: 0.53-0.83; p=0.0003). Three times as many people treated with Trodelvy were progression-free at one year versus those treated with chemotherapy (21% versus 7%). Secondary endpoint measures, including objective response rate and time to deterioration (TTD), were also significantly improved by Trodelvy.

Trodelvy is now recommended as a Category 1, preferred treatment for metastatic HR+/HER2- breast cancer by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN).

Related questions

Does Trodelvy shrink tumors?

Trodelvy may shrink the size of your tumors. In the ASCENT trial conducted on patients with TNBC, about 4 percent had their tumors completely disappear (complete response) and about 31 percent had a partial response.

In addition to the patients who benefit from the tumor-shrinking effects of Trodelvy, other patients also derive a clinical benefit from taking this drug because it keeps their disease stable - meaning that their tumors stay about the same size for some time instead of getting worse.

Trodelvy has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat:

References
  • Bardia A, Hurvitz SA, Tolaney SM, et al. Sacituzumab Govitecan in Metastatic Triple-Negative Breast Cancer. N Engl J Med. 2021;384(16):1529-1541. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa2028485
  • Bardia A, Mayer IA, Vahdat LT, et al. Sacituzumab Govitecan-hziy in Refractory Metastatic Triple-Negative Breast Cancer. N Engl J Med. 2019;380(8):741-751. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1814213
  • U.S. FDA Approves Trodelvy in Pre-treated HR+/HER2- Metastatic Breast Cancer. Feb 03, 2023. https://www.drugs.com/newdrugs/u-s-fda-approves-trodelvy-pre-treated-hr-her2-metastatic-breast-cancer-5970.html
  • Trodelvy Prescribing Information. https://www.gilead.com/-/media/files/pdfs/medicines/oncology/trodelvy/trodelvy_pi.pdf

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