Dr. Carey on Possibility of Immunotherapy in HER2+ Breast Cancer

Lisa Carey, MD, associate director, Clinical Research, UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, Richardson and Marilyn Jacobs Preyer Distinguished Professorship for Breast Cancer Research, UNC-Chapel Hill, discusses the possibility of administering immunotherapy as treatment for patients with HER2-positive breast cancer, in an interview during the 2016 OncLive State of the Science Summit on Metastatic Breast Cancer.

Immunotherapy is likely to be studied in all subtypes of breast cancer, Carey explains. Though researchers currently do not know how to select for this type of treatment, similar studies showing restrictions in the B-cell receptor that are suggestive of clonal expansion and an actual antigenic response are highest in triple-negative and HER2-enriched breast cancers.

There is a rationale for looking at immunotherapy in this patient population, Carey adds, and manipulating the microenvironment could have an impact across all tumors.