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Gupta RK, Roy AM, Gupta A, Takabe K, Dhakal A, Opyrchal M, Kalinski P, Gandhi S. Systemic Therapy De-Escalation in Early-Stage Triple-Negative Breast Cancer: Dawn of a New Era? Cancers (Basel) 2022; 14:cancers14081856. [PMID: 35454764 PMCID: PMC9025008 DOI: 10.3390/cancers14081856] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/28/2022] [Revised: 03/29/2022] [Accepted: 04/05/2022] [Indexed: 02/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Simple Summary Triple-negative breast cancer is a life-threatening disease, even when identified at early stages. Recent advances have allowed the improvement of life expectancy via a personalized approach with the addition of newer chemotherapies, immunotherapies, and targeted therapies, but at the cost of added side effects. It has become increasingly clear that not all patients need such aggressive treatment. Here, we provide an overview of emerging opportunities to use less toxic therapies in patients at lower risk of recurrence or with mutations that can be effectively targeted using novel approaches. We provide a comprehensive review of completed and ongoing clinical trials with information on how to best stratify these patients for treatments to obtain maximum benefit without unnecessary toxicities. Abstract Early-stage triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) has been traditionally treated with surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. The current standard of care systemic treatment of early-stage II and III TNBC involves the use of anthracycline-cyclophosphamide and carboplatin-paclitaxel with pembrolizumab in the neoadjuvant setting followed by adjuvant pembrolizumab per KEYNOTE-522. It is increasingly clear that not all patients with early-stage TNBC need this intensive treatment, thus paving the way for exploring opportunities for regimen de-escalation in selected subgroups. For T1a tumors (≤5 mm), chemotherapy is not used, and for tumors 6–10 mm (T1b) in size with negative lymph nodes, retrospective studies have failed to show a significant benefit with chemotherapy. In low-risk patients, anthracycline-free chemotherapy may be as effective as conventional therapy, as shown in some studies where replacing anthracyclines with carboplatin has shown non-inferior results for pathological complete response (pCR), which may form the backbone of future combination therapies. Recent advances in our understanding of TNBC heterogeneity, mutations, and surrogate markers of response such as pCR have enabled the development of multiple treatment options in the (neo)adjuvant setting in order to de-escalate treatment. These de-escalation studies based on tumor mutational status, such as using Poly ADP-ribose polymerase inhibitors (PARPi) in patients with BRCA mutations, and new immunotherapies such as PD1 blockade, have shown a promising impact on pCR. In addition, the investigational use of (bio)markers, such as high levels of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), low levels of tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs), and complete remission on imaging, also look promising. In this review, we cover the current standard of care systemic treatment of early TNBC and review the opportunities for treatment de-escalation based on clinical risk factors, biomarkers, mutational status, and molecular subtype.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ravi Kumar Gupta
- Department of Internal Medicine, Larkin Community Hospital, South Miami, FL 33143, USA;
| | - Arya Mariam Roy
- Department of Medicine, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Buffalo, NY 14263, USA; (A.M.R.); (A.G.); (P.K.)
| | - Ashish Gupta
- Department of Medicine, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Buffalo, NY 14263, USA; (A.M.R.); (A.G.); (P.K.)
| | - Kazuaki Takabe
- Department of Immunology and Surgical Oncology, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Buffalo, NY 14263, USA;
- Department of Gastroenterological Surgery, Yokohama City University Graduate School of Medicine, Yokohama 236-0004, Japan
- Department of Surgery, Niigata University Graduate School of Medicine and Dental Sciences, Niigata 951-8510, Japan
- Department of Breast Surgery and Oncology, Tokyo Medical University, Tokyo 160-8402, Japan
- Department of Surgery, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, State University of New York, Buffalo, NY 14263, USA
| | - Ajay Dhakal
- Department of Medicine, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY 14648, USA;
| | - Mateusz Opyrchal
- Department of Medicine, Indiana University Simons Comprehensive Cancer Center, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA;
| | - Pawel Kalinski
- Department of Medicine, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Buffalo, NY 14263, USA; (A.M.R.); (A.G.); (P.K.)
- Department of Immunology, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Buffalo, NY 14263, USA
| | - Shipra Gandhi
- Department of Medicine, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Buffalo, NY 14263, USA; (A.M.R.); (A.G.); (P.K.)
- Department of Immunology, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Buffalo, NY 14263, USA
- Correspondence: ; Tel.: +1-(716)-845-1686
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