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Immune checkpoint inhibitors plus neoadjuvant chemotherapy in early triple-negative breast cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

ABSTRACT:

Purpose

Some studies have shown that Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have a favorable efficacy in advanced triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) patients, but the results are controversial in neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) stage. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficacy and safety after NACT plus ICIs in early TNBC patients.

Methods

After searching PubMed, EMBASE, the Cochrane library and several mainly oncology conferences up to 30 January 2021 systematically, and define randomized controlled trials (RCTs) exploring the efficacy and safety of programmed death protein-1/programmed cell death-Ligand 1(PD-1/PD-L1) inhibitors plus neoadjuvant chemotherapy in TNBC patients. The primary endpoint was the pathological complete response (pCR) in intention-to-treat populations (ITT), and the secondary endpoints were event-free survival (EFS) and safety analysis in the ITT populations.

Results

Six RCTs (N = 2142) were included in our meta-analysis; NACT plus ICIs increased pCR rates compared with NACT in intention-to-treat (ITT) populations (OR: 1.91; 95% CI: 1.32-2.78, P < 0.001). The pCR rate also increased in both PD-L1 positive (OR: 1.65; 95% CI: 1.26-2.16, P < 0.001) and PD-L1 negative patients (OR: 1.56; 95% CI: 1.04-2.33, P = 0.03), especially in PD-L1 positive patients. The benefit was also observed in nodal-positive populations (OR: 2.52; 95% CI: 1.69-3.77, P < 0.001) and Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance-status score (ECOG PS) 0 subgroup (OR: 1.90; 95% CI: 1.42-2.53, P < 0.001). Three RCTs (N = 1615) reported EFS and the results showed that adding PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors increased EFS (HR 0.65, 95% CI 0.50-0.83, P = 0.0007) in ITT populations with a short follow-up time. In the safety analysis of 2205 patients with early TNBC from five eligible studies, NACT plus ICIs had a higher risk of grade 3-4 diarrhea (OR: 2.54; 95% CI: 1.21-5.32; P = 0.01), any grade of adverse effects(AEs)including vomiting (OR: 1.37; 95% CI: 1.00-1.86; P = 0.05), hyperthyroidism (OR: 6.04; 95% CI: 2.39-15.29; P < 0.001), and hypothyroidism (OR: 5.04; 95% CI: 3.02-8.39; P < 0.001).

Conclusions

PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors combined with chemotherapy can improve pCR rates and EFS, and with an increased incidence of some immune-related AEs compared with chemotherapy alone. NACT plus ICIs might be an option in patients with in PD-L1 positive and high-risk populations with positive nodal disease early TNBC.

SUBMITTER: Xin Y

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8609839 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Immunotherapy has emerged as the fifth pillar of cancer treatment alongside surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and targeted therapy. Immune checkpoint inhibitors are the current superheroes of immunotherapy, unleashing a patient's own immune cells to kill tumors and revolutionizing cancer treatment in a variety of cancers. Although breast cancer was historically believed to be immunologically silent, treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors has been shown to induce modest responses in metastatic breast cancer. Given the inherent heterogeneity of breast tumors, this raised the question whether certain breast tumors might benefit more from immune-based interventions and which cancer cell-intrinsic and/or microenvironmental factors define the likelihood of inducing a potent and durable anti-tumor immune response. In this review, we will focus on triple negative breast cancer as immunogenic breast cancer subtype, and specifically discuss the relevance of tumor mutational burden, the plethora and diversity of tumor infiltrating immune cells in addition to the immunoscore, the presence of immune checkpoint expression, and the microbiome in defining immune checkpoint blockade response. We will highlight the current immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment options, either as monotherapy or in combination with standard-of-care treatment modalities such as chemotherapy and targeted therapy. In addition, we will look into the potential of immunotherapy-based combination strategies using immune checkpoint inhibitors to enhance both innate and adaptive immune responses, or to establish a more immune favorable environment for cancer vaccines. Finally, the review will address the need for unambiguous predictive biomarkers as one of the main challenges of immune checkpoint blockade. To conclude, the potential of immune checkpoint blockade for triple negative breast cancer treatment could be enhanced by exploration of aforementioned factors and treatment strategies thereby providing promising future prospects.