Peter Schmid, MD, PhD, lead at the Centre for Experimental Cancer Medicine, Barts Cancer Institute, discusses the benefit of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) when added to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC).

In KEYNOTE-522, the randomized, phase III trial randomized patients with either chemotherapy plus pembrolizumab or chemotherapy with placebo for 6 months before surgery. After surgery, patients were continually treated with pembrolizumab or placebo for 1 year.

The 2 endpoints of the trial were pathologic complete response (pCR) rate and event-free survival (EFS). Patients in the control arm had a pCR of 51.2% versus 64.8% in the pembrolizumab arm, with an absolute difference of 13.6% (95% CI, 5.4%-21.8%; 

 = .00055). This is a significant and meaningful difference, in which pCR can be seen as linked with positive long-term outcome and reduced risk of recurrence, concludes Schmid.

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Peter Schmid, MD, PhD, discusses the benefit of pembrolizumab when added to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients with triple-negative breast cancer.
 

Peter Schmid, MD

Articles

Dr. Schmid on Activity With Neoadjuvant Pembrolizumab in TNBC