Progress in immune checkpoint inhibition in early-stage triple-negative breast cancer

Expert Rev Anticancer Ther. 2023 Sep 25. doi: 10.1080/14737140.2023.2262764. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTINTRODUCTION: Immune checkpoint inhibitors have been particularly effective in treating cancers with robust immune microenvironments and have been successfully incorporated into the management of metastatic ER-negative, HER2-negative breast cancer. This has prompted investigation of immunotherapy in early-stage triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) to address the suboptimal clinical outcomes and limited therapeutic options.AREAS COVERED: This review highlights the studies examining the use of neoadjuvant immunotherapy with standard chemotherapy in the management of early-stage TNBC as well as ongoing areas of study including the role of checkpoint inhibition in the adjuvant setting and novel combination therapies with immunotherapy.EXPERT OPINION: At present, the current standard of care for women with early-stage ER-negative, HER2-negative breast cancer measuring ≥2 cm or with lymph node involvement is neoadjuvant chemotherapy with pembrolizumab followed by ongoing pembrolizumab in the adjuvant setting to complete 1 year of total therapy as per the KEYNOTE-522 study. This approach is associated with improved pathologic complete response (pCR) rate as well as improved event free survival. These improvements in disease management occur regardless of PD-L1 status. Many questions remain regarding the optimization of chemotherapy partner(s) for immunotherapy, necessity of a...
Source: Expert Review of Anticancer Therapy - Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Source Type: research