Content provided Massey Ross, M.D., M.S., Medical oncologist and director of the Clinical Research Affiliate Network. VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center
Cancer immunotherapy is an innovative form of treatment that conditions a person’s immune system to target and fend off disease. More recently, it has significantly advanced the field of oncology, offering many patients more effective options to overcome their disease or improve their quality of life, with particular regard to breast cancer.
Study findings have influenced a shift in the current standard of care to add an immunotherapy drug called pembrolizumab to chemotherapy before surgery in patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), a fast-growing, aggressive cancer that accounts for up to 15% of all breast cancers. Compared to chemotherapy alone, this combination significantly extends event-free survival in patients.
Additionally, for patients who have a positive expression of the PD-L1 protein, the standard of care now includes the combination of immunotherapy with chemotherapy for women with metastatic TNBC.
Clinical trials continue to be activated nationwide in order to further investigate how immunotherapies could offer new hope for breast cancer patients. One study is evaluating the efficacy of an immunotherapy (durvalumab) in addition to chemotherapy for the treatment of hormone-positive, high-risk breast cancer. Another clinical trial is testing the addition of an individualized vaccine to immunotherapy and chemotherapy treatment regimens in patients with advanced TNBC. This is a very interesting study, where the vaccine targets molecules on the tumor cells as a way to train the immune system to specifically target and attack the cancer.
Immunotherapies are playing a large part in shaping clinical discoveries to better treat and eradicate cancer.