Francisco J. Esteva: A new era in personalized medicine for high-risk stage 2/3 breast cancer

Francisco J. Esteva, Chief, Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology at Lenox Hill Hospital, shared a post on LinkedIn:

“Clinical trials are the foundation of evidence-based medicine.

The I-SPY2.2 trial is pioneering a new era in personalized medicine for high-risk stage 2/3 breast cancer.

In one arm of the trial, researchers explored the combination of datopotamab–deruxtecan – Dato-DXd – with durvalumab, an immune checkpoint inhibitor in patients with early breast cancer. Both treatments were given prior to lumpectomy or mastectomy. The results were particularly promising for patients with the immune-positive subtype.

Another arm of the trial evaluated Dato-DXd as a monotherapy. While it did not meet the predefined threshold for success after the first treatment block in any subtype, the overall treatment strategy showed significant efficacy in patients with the hormone receptor-negative, HER2-negative, immune-negative subtype, achieving a pathological complete response rate of 41%.

An ongoing clinical trial called TROPION-Breast03 is evaluating the efficacy of Dato-DXd, both alone and in combination with immunotherapy agents like durvalumab after preoperative systemic therapy and surgery in patients with residual invasive cancer.

The combination of an antibody-drug conjugate, or ‘targeted chemo’ and immunotherapy makes sense for many types of cancer. However, clinical trials are needed to figure out what patients will benefit, in what stage and molecular subtype.

I encourage all my patients who are eligible for a clinical trial to participate!

Read the studies published in Nature for more details. See Comments.”

Source: Francisco J. Esteva/LinkedIn