Real-World Evidence on Prescribing Patterns and Clinical Outcomes of Metastatic Breast Cancer Patients Treated with PARP Inhibitors: The Mayo Clinic Experience.

Purpose: This study evaluates real-world outcomes, toxicities, and prescribing patterns of PARP inhibitors (PARPis) for the treatment of metastatic breast cancer (MBC).

Patients And Methods: Electronic health records of 62 MBC patients treated with olaparib (n = 48) or talazoparib (n = 14) at Mayo Clinic System between 2017 and 2022 were analyzed. Time-to-treatment-failure (TTF) was assessed utilizing the Kaplan-Meier method.

Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocytes in Patients With Stage I Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Untreated With Chemotherapy.

Importance: The absolute benefit of chemotherapy for all patients with stage I triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is unclear, and biomarkers are not currently available for selecting patients with an excellent outcome for whom neoadjuvant or adjuvant chemotherapy may have negligible benefit. High levels of stromal tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (sTILs) are associated with favorable survival in TNBC, but data solely in stage I TNBC are lacking.

Objective: To examine the outcomes of patients of all ages with stage I TNBC solely and who received neither neoadjuvant nor adjuvant chemotherapy, according to centrally reviewed sTIL levels at prespecified cutoffs.

Blockade of tumor cell-intrinsic PD-L1 signaling enhances AURKA-targeted therapy in triple negative breast cancer.

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) accounts for 15-20% of all breast cancers and mainly affects pre-menopausal and minority women. Because of the lack of ER, PR or HER2 expression in TNBC, there are limited options for tailored therapies. While TNBCs respond initially to standard of care chemotherapy, tumor recurrence commonly occurs within 1 to 3 years post-chemotherapy and is associated with early organ metastasis and a high incidence of mortality.

Impact of Presenting Stage on Overall Survival in Patients Treated with Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy for Triple Negative Breast Cancer.

Purpose: For operable triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC), clinical prognostication and postoperative decision-making relies exclusively on whether a pathologic complete response (pCR) is achieved or not. We evaluated whether extent of disease at presentation further influenced overall survival (OS) among patients with pCR or with residual disease (RD) following NAC.

Methods: Patients with stage I-III TNBC who underwent NAC were identified from the National Cancer Database from 2010 to 2019.

Anastrozole Dose Escalation for Optimal Estrogen Suppression in Postmenopausal Early-Stage Breast Cancer: A Prospective Trial.

Purpose: We previously reported that postmenopausal women with estrogen receptor-α-positive breast cancer receiving adjuvant anastrozole 1 mg/day (ANA1) with estrone (E1) ≥1.3 pg/mL and estradiol (E2) ≥0.5 pg/mL [inadequate estrogen suppression (IES)] had a threefold increased risk of a breast cancer event.

Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocytes in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer.

Importance: The association of tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) abundance in breast cancer tissue with cancer recurrence and death in patients with early-stage triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) who are not treated with adjuvant or neoadjuvant chemotherapy is unclear.

Objective: To study the association of TIL abundance in breast cancer tissue with survival among patients with early-stage TNBC who were treated with locoregional therapy but no chemotherapy.

Design, Setting, And Participants: Retrospective pooled analysis of individual patient-level data from 13 participating centers in North America (Rochester, Minnesota; Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada), Europe (Paris, Lyon, and Villejuif, France; Amsterdam and Rotterdam, the Netherlands; Milan, Padova, and Genova, Italy; Gothenburg, Sweden), and Asia (Tokyo, Japan; Seoul, Korea), including 1966 participants diagnosed with TNBC between 1979 and 2017 (with follow-up until September 27, 2021) who received treatment with surgery with or without radiotherapy but no adjuvant or neoadjuvant chemotherapy.

Automated mitotic spindle hotspot counts are highly associated with clinical outcomes in systemically untreated early-stage triple-negative breast cancer.

Operable triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) has a higher risk of recurrence and death compared to other subtypes. Tumor size and nodal status are the primary clinical factors used to guide systemic treatment, while biomarkers of proliferation have not demonstrated value. Recent studies suggest that subsets of TNBC have a favorable prognosis, even without systemic therapy.

Identification of a Notch transcriptomic signature for breast cancer.

Background: Dysregulated Notch signalling contributes to breast cancer development and progression, but validated tools to measure the level of Notch signalling in breast cancer subtypes and in response to systemic therapy are largely lacking. A transcriptomic signature of Notch signalling would be warranted, for example to monitor the effects of future Notch-targeting therapies and to learn whether altered Notch signalling is an off-target effect of current breast cancer therapies. In this report, we have established such a classifier.

Advances in systemic therapies for triple negative breast cancer.

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) continues to be the subtype of breast cancer with the highest rates of recurrence and mortality. The lack of expression of targetable proteins such as the estrogen receptor and absence of HER2 amplification have made relying on cytotoxic chemotherapy necessary for decades. In the operable setting, efforts to improve outcomes have focused on escalation of systemic therapy and a shift toward preoperative delivery followed by a response adapted approach to postoperative systemic therapy.

Clinical outcomes and prognostic factors in triple-negative invasive lobular carcinoma of the breast.

Purpose: Triple-negative invasive lobular carcinoma (TN-ILC) of breast cancer is a rare disease and the clinical outcomes and prognostic factors are not well-defined.

Methods: Women with stage I-III TN-ILC or triple-negative invasive ductal carcinoma (TN-IDC) of the breast undergoing mastectomy or breast-conserving surgery between 2010 and 2018 in the National Cancer Database were included. Kaplan-Meier curves and multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression were used to compare overall survival (OS) and evaluate prognostic factors.

Distinct spatial immune microlandscapes are independently associated with outcomes in triple-negative breast cancer.

The utility of spatial immunobiomarker quantitation in prognostication and therapeutic prediction is actively being investigated in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). Here, with high-plex quantitative digital spatial profiling, we map and quantitate intraepithelial and adjacent stromal tumor immune protein microenvironments in systemic treatment-naïve (female only) TNBC to assess the spatial context in immunobiomarker-based prediction of outcome. Immune protein profiles of CD45-rich and CD68-rich stromal microenvironments differ significantly.

Clinical Outcomes and Prognostic Factors in Triple-Negative Invasive Lobular Carcinoma of the Breast.

Triple-negative invasive lobular carcinoma (TN-ILC) of breast cancer is a rare disease and the clinical outcomes and prognostic factors are not well-defined. Women with stage I-III TN-ILC or triple-negative invasive ductal carcinoma (TN-IDC) of the breast undergoing mastectomy or breast-conserving surgery between 2010 and 2018 in the National Cancer Database were included. Kaplan-Meier curves and multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression were used to compare overall survival (OS) and evaluate prognostic factors.

PDJ amplicon in triple negative breast cancer.

Amplification of chromosome 9p24.1 targeting PD-L1, PD-L2, and JAK2 (PDJ amplicon) is present in subsets of triple negative breast cancers (TNBCs) and is associated with poor clinical outcomes. However, the prevalence of PDJ+ TNBCs varies extensively across studies applying different methods for interrogating samples of interest.

Luminal androgen receptor breast cancer subtype and investigation of the microenvironment and neoadjuvant chemotherapy response.

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is the most aggressive breast cancer subtype with low overall survival rates and high molecular heterogeneity; therefore, few targeted therapies are available. The luminal androgen receptor (LAR) is the most consistently identified TNBC subtype, but the clinical utility has yet to be established. Here, we constructed a novel genomic classifier, LAR-Sig, that distinguishes the LAR subtype from other TNBC subtypes and provide evidence that it is a clinically distinct disease.

Surveillance mammography after treatment for male breast cancer.

Purpose: To identify the practice patterns related to use of surveillance mammography in male breast cancer (MaBC) survivors.

Methods: Using administrative claims data from OptumLabs Data Warehouse, we identified men who underwent surgery for breast cancer during 2007-2017. We calculated the proportion of men who had at least one mammogram (a) within 13 months for all patients and (b) within 24 months amongst those who maintained their insurance coverage for at least that length of time after surgery.

Roles of Notch Signaling in the Tumor Microenvironment.

The Notch signaling pathway is an architecturally simple signaling mechanism, well known for its role in cell fate regulation during organ development and in tissue homeostasis. In keeping with its importance for normal development, dysregulation of Notch signaling is increasingly associated with different types of tumors, and proteins in the Notch signaling pathway can act as oncogenes or tumor suppressors, depending on the cellular context and tumor type. In addition to a role as a driver of tumor initiation and progression in the tumor cells carrying oncogenic mutations, it is an emerging realization that Notch signaling also plays a role in non-mutated cells in the tumor microenvironment.

Analysis of patients without and with an initial triple-negative breast cancer diagnosis in the phase 3 randomized ASCENT study of sacituzumab govitecan in metastatic triple-negative breast cancer.

Purpose: Sacituzumab govitecan (SG) is an antibody-drug conjugate composed of an anti-Trop-2 antibody coupled to SN-38 via a proprietary hydrolyzable linker. In the ASCENT study, SG improved survival versus single-agent treatment of physician's choice (TPC) in pre-treated metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (mTNBC). Hormone/HER2 receptor changes are common, particularly at relapse/metastasis.

Estrogen receptor beta repurposes EZH2 to suppress oncogenic NFκB/p65 signaling in triple negative breast cancer.

Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) accounts for 15-20% of all breast cancer cases, yet is responsible for a disproportionately high percentage of breast cancer mortalities. Thus, there is an urgent need to identify novel biomarkers and therapeutic targets based on the molecular events driving TNBC pathobiology. Estrogen receptor beta (ERβ) is known to elicit anti-cancer effects in TNBC, however its mechanisms of action remain elusive.

ASCO-Sponsored Oncology Student Interest Groups in the World.

Purpose: In 2015, ASCO established a program designed to support medical interest in cancer-related careers: Oncology Student Interest Groups (OSIGs). The purpose of this study was to describe the characteristics of current student leaders of ASCO-sponsored OSIGs and their perceptions of cancer-related careers.

Methods: We reviewed the list of all ASCO-sponsored OSIGs between 2015 and 2021.

The Landmark Series: Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy for Triple-Negative and HER2-Positive Breast Cancer.

While historically breast cancer has been treated with primary surgery followed by adjuvant therapy, the delivery of systemic therapy in the neoadjuvant setting has become increasingly common, especially for triple-negative and HER2-positive breast cancer. The initial motivations for pursuing neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) were decreasing the tumor burden in the breast and axilla to enable de-escalation of surgery, and use the strategy to advance drug development. While these remain of interest, recent trials have additionally demonstrated survival advantages from escalation of systemic treatment in patients with residual disease, and new studies are testing de-escalation of systemic therapy based on pathologic response.