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Immunotherapy Approaches to Breast Cancer

  • Systemic Therapies (M Liu and T Haddad, Section Editors)
  • Published:
Current Breast Cancer Reports Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose of Review

Activating the immune system to eradicate breast cancer has emerged as a promising treatment strategy, and immune checkpoint inhibition has demonstrated activity in both advanced and early stage disease. Here we review recent clinical trial results of immunotherapy approaches to treat breast cancer.

Recent Findings

A number of trials of immune checkpoint inhibitors, both as monotherapy and in combination with other therapies, have been reported. While response rates with monotherapy in the advanced stage setting are relatively low, the durability of responses observed is remarkable. While PD-L1 positivity enriches for responders, it is not a consistent predictor of response. Response appears to correlate more strongly with tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) density.

Summary

Immune checkpoint inhibition alone and in combination with chemotherapy appears well tolerated with manageable side effects. Treatment clearly benefits a subset of patients, and more precise biomarkers of response are needed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medicine, Section of Hematology/Oncology, The University of Chicago, 5841 S. Maryland Ave, MC 2115, Chicago, IL, 60637-1470, USA

    April Swoboda & Rita Nanda

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  1. April Swoboda
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  2. Rita Nanda
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Correspondence to Rita Nanda.

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Conflict of Interest

April Swoboda is supported by an institutional K12 award (CA139160).

Rita Nanda is a Cancer Clinical Investigator Team Leadership Award Recipient (awarded by the National Cancer Institute though a supplement to P30CA014599).

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Systemic Therapies

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Swoboda, A., Nanda, R. Immunotherapy Approaches to Breast Cancer. Curr Breast Cancer Rep 9, 227–235 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12609-017-0252-9

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