Dr. Chagpar on Novel Agents for Neoadjuvant TNBC Treatment

Anees B. Chagpar, MD, associate professor of Surgery (Oncology), director of The Breast Center at Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven, Yale Cancer Center, discusses novel agents for neoadjuvant triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) treatment.

TNBC represents about one-fifth of all breast cancers, Chagpar explains. Historically, it has been associated with a poor prognosis.

As patients with TNBC respond well to neoadjuvant chemotherapy, there has been a number of clinical trials looking at novel agents in this subset of patients. For example, platinum-based agents seem to work well in TNBC, she says.

Patients with TNBC tend to have a high rate of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes, Chagpar explains, so this is a potentially exciting target for immunotherapy. Clinical trials have shown immunotherapy works well in heavily pre-treated patients with metastatic breast cancer, and Chagpar believes an ongoing trial looking at neoadjuvant immunotherapy in early-stage TNBC has the potential to change disease management for these patients.

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