Key clinical point: In patients with early, operable breast cancer (BC), peritumoral injection of a local anesthetic (lidocaine) prior to surgery improved survival outcomes.
Major finding: Peritumoral infiltration of lidocaine at the time of surgery led to 26% improvement in disease-free survival (hazard ratio [HR] 0.74; P = .017) and 29% improvement in overall survival (HR 0.71; P = .019) at a median follow-up of 68 months. No adverse events related to injection of lidocaine were reported.
Study details: Findings are from the phase 3 study including 1583 patients with early, operable BC who did not receive prior neoadjuvant treatment and were randomly assigned to undergo surgery with or without a peritumoral injection of 0.5% lidocaine 7-10 minutes preoperatively.
Disclosures: This study was supported by Department of Atomic Energy, India. Dr. Sudeep Gupta declared receiving research funding from several sources.
Source: Badwe RA et al. Effect of peritumoral infiltration of local anesthetic before surgery on survival in early breast cancer. J Clin Oncol. 2023 (Apr 6). Doi: 10.1200/JCO.22.01966