Triple Negative Breast Cancer, TNBC, is the most aggressive type of breast cancer.
Once the disease becomes metastatic, life expectancy is around 12 to 15 months.
Triple Negative Breast Cancer, TNBC, does not have receptors for hormones and its cancer cells do not over express the protein HER2 (also called “ERBB2”) and so it cannot be treated with hormone therapy or drugs specifically targeting HER2. The main treatment is chemotherapy and most patients develop resistance to chemotherapy within a few months and their disease gets worsen.
902 patients were enrolled to the study in 303 cancer centers around the globe.
451 were treated with a combination of two drugs:
- An immunotherapy drug called “Tecentriq” which is approved of urothelial and lung cancers
- “Abraxane” which a type of FDA approved chemotherapy usually used to treat pancreatic cancer.
All study participants received the treatments as first line for their metastatic disease, meaning at the earliest stage of the metastatic disease and not at later lines, after failure of several treatments.
The study name is “IMpassion130” and based on the following remarkable results, the FDA has granted an accelerated approval for the treatment of patients with Triple Negative Breast Cancer, TNBC, or unresectable locally advanced who are PD-L1–positive (>1%) with first line Tecentriq plus Abraxane:
- The risk of worsening of the disease under the combination therapy was 40% lower than Abraxane alone
- Time to worsening of the disease, was extended by 50% in the combination therapy compared to Abraxan alone
- A year after starting the treatment, 29% of the patients with the combination therapy had no worsening of the disease, compared to 16% with Abraxane alone
- The patients in the combination therapy lived a middian of 25 months, compared to 15.5 months with Abraxane alone
- 54% of the patients lived two years after starting the treatment on the combination therapy, compared to 37% with Abraxane alone
It was possible to participate in this study from April 2015 and to benefit from this advanced and innovative treatment, almost four years before the FDA gave its official approval.
The true progress in cancer medicine lies in clinical trials. Do not settle for the regular treatments and standard protocols and always be certain that there are more treatments that can be offered to you even if you are told that there are not or you are not in the stage of clinical trials. Look what happened to those who participated in this study, she gained more, she lives longer.
For further reading
https://www.onclive.com/web-exclusives/fda-approves-atezolizumab-combo-for-frontline-tnbc