Kisqali is not chemotherapy. It belongs to a group of drugs called kinase inhibitors. It’s a type of targeted therapy for breast cancer.
Kisqali is prescribed to treat breast cancer in adults in the following situations:
- advanced or metastatic breast cancer that’s hormone receptor-positive (HR-positive) and HER2-negative
- stage 2 and stage 3 breast cancer that’s HR-positive and HER2-negative and has a high risk of recurrence
Kisqali is prescribed in combination with certain other medications and is not approved for use on its own.
Kisqali belongs to a group of drugs called kinase inhibitors. It’s a type of targeted therapy.
Kisqali comes as a tablet that you swallow. It contains the active ingredient ribociclib.
Doctors typically prescribe Kisqali along with a hormone therapy drug such as fulvestrant (Faslodex) or letrozole (Femara). The specific type of hormone therapy your doctor prescribes will depend on several factors, including:
- which hormone therapy you’ve taken for your breast cancer in the past
- how your cancer responded to the previous treatment
- your sex assigned at birth
- your menopause status
Breast cancer occurs when cells in your breast grow and multiply quickly. The hormone estrogen sometimes encourages breast cancer cells to do this. This type of cancer is called HR-positive.
With HR-positive breast cancer, estrogen makes particular proteins (called CDK 4 and 6) in the cancer cells more active than usual. When these proteins — which are involved in managing cell growth — become overactive, they cause the breast cancer cells to grow and multiply more quickly.
Kisqali works by blocking the action of CDK 4 and 6 proteins. This stops the breast cancer cells from growing and multiplying, which slows the spread of the cancer.
Kisqali is a targeted therapy for breast cancer because it acts on this specific feature of the cancer cells. It’s taken in combination with hormone therapies that decrease the action of estrogen on the cancer cells.
When you take both treatments, they work together to slow the growth of the cancer more effectively than either drug on its own.
Chemotherapy targets and kills cells that multiply quickly. Because cancer cells grow and multiply more quickly than most healthy cells, chemotherapy is designed to target cancer cells. However, chemotherapy can affect healthy cells that divide rapidly, leading to side effects such as hair loss and low blood cell counts.
Unlike chemotherapy, targeted therapy can prevent cancer cells from dividing and creating new cancer cells.
Talk with your doctor or pharmacist if you have questions about how Kisqali or other breast cancer treatments work.
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