Impact of HER2-low status for patients with early-stage breast cancer and non-pCR after neoadjuvant chemotherapy: a National Cancer Database Analysis.
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2023-12
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Abstract
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To investigate potential differences in pathological complete response (pCR) rates and overall survival (OS) between HER2-low and HER2-zero patients with early-stage hormone receptor (HR)-positive and triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), in the neoadjuvant chemotherapy setting.Methods
We identified early-stage invasive HER2-negative BC patients who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy diagnosed between 2010 and 2018 in the National Cancer Database. HER2-low was defined by immunohistochemistry (IHC) 1+ or 2+ with negative in situ hybridization, and HER2-zero by IHC0. All the methods were applied separately in the HR-positive and TNBC cohorts. Logistic regression was used to estimate the association of HER2 status with pCR (i.e. ypT0/Tis and ypN0). Kaplan-Meier method and Cox proportional hazards model were applied to estimate the association of HER2 status with OS. Inverse probability weighting and/or multivariable regression were applied to all analyses.Results
For HR-positive patients, 70.9% (n = 17,934) were HER2-low, whereas 51.1% (n = 10,238) of TNBC patients were HER2-low. For both HR-positive and TNBC cohorts, HER2-low status was significantly associated with lower pCR rates [HR-positive: 5.0% vs. 6.7%; weighted odds ratio (OR) = 0.81 (95% CI: 0.72-0.91), p < 0.001; TNBC: 21.6% vs. 24.4%; weighted OR = 0.91 (95% CI: 0.85-0.98), p = 0.007] and improved OS [HR-positive: weighted hazard ratio = 0.85 (95% CI: 0.79-0.91), p < 0.001; TNBC: weighted hazard ratio = 0.91 (95% CI: 0.86-0.96), p < 0.001]. HER2-low status was associated with favorable OS among patients not achieving pCR [HR-positive: adjusted hazard ratio = 0.83 (95% CI: 0.77-0.89), p < 0.001; TNBC: adjusted hazard ratio = 0.88 (95% CI 0.83-0.94), p < 0.001], while no significant difference in OS was observed in patients who achieved pCR [HR-positive: adjusted hazard ratio = 1.00 (95% CI: 0.61-1.63), p > 0.99; TNBC: adjusted hazard ratio = 1.11 (95% CI: 0.85-1.45), p = 0.44].Conclusion
In both early-stage HR-positive and TNBC patients, HER2-low status was associated with lower pCR rates. HER2-zero status might be considered an adverse prognostic factor for OS in patients not achieving pCR.Type
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Li, Huiyue, Jennifer K Plichta, Kan Li, Yizi Jin, Samantha M Thomas, Fei Ma, Li Tang, Qingyi Wei, et al. (2023). Impact of HER2-low status for patients with early-stage breast cancer and non-pCR after neoadjuvant chemotherapy: a National Cancer Database Analysis. Breast cancer research and treatment. 10.1007/s10549-023-07171-z Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/29606.
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Scholars@Duke
Jennifer K Plichta
Dr. Jennifer Plichta is an Associate Professor of Surgery & Population Health Sciences at Duke University. She serves as the Director of the Breast Risk Assessment Clinic in the Duke Cancer Institute, where she cares for patients with breast cancer, benign breast problems, and those with an increased risk of breast cancer. Her clinical interests include establishing routine breast cancer risk assessment for women and creating personalized management strategies for those found to be “high risk”.
Dr. Plichta’s research focuses of identifying and managing women with risk factors for breast cancer, including those with genetic mutations, such as BRCA, those with abnormal breast biopsies, and those with a family history of breast cancer. She is also studying metastatic breast cancer and how breast cancer staging can be used to improve patient care and education.
However, her dedication to breast cancer extends beyond her clinical and research interests. She also enjoys educating the community about breast cancer and helping to raise money for breast cancer research and education. She is the creator and primary coordinator of Duke’s free, annual breast education day for the community, “What’s best for breasts?”.
Qingyi Wei
Qingyi Wei, MD, PhD, Professor in the Department of Medicine, is Associate Director for Cancer Control and Population Sciences, Co-leader of CCPS and Co-leader of Epidemiology and Population Genomics (Focus Area 1). He is a professor of Medicine and an internationally recognized epidemiologist focused on the molecular and genetic epidemiology of head and neck cancers, lung cancer, and melanoma. His research focuses on biomarkers and genetic determinants for the DNA repair deficient phenotype and variations in cell death. He is Editor-in-Chief of the open access journal "Cancer Medicine" and Associate Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Molecular Epidemiology and Genetics.
Area of Expertise: Epidemiology
You-Wen He
We study T cell biology in health and disease. Our current study is divided into two parts. Part I is to investigate T lymphocyte-mediated anti-caner immunity. We have found that host complement inhibits the cytokine IL-10 production in CD8+ tumor infiltrating lymphocytes through complement receptors C3aR and C5aR. Complement-deficient animals are resistant to tumor development in a T cell- and IL-10-dependent manner. CD8+ tumor infiltrating T cells express IL-10 when complement signaling is disabled. We found that tumor infiltrating lymphocytes from human cancers expanded with IL-2 plus IL-10 are potent tumor killers. Complement-mediated inhibition on antitumor immunity is independent of the PD-1/PD-L1 immune checkpoint pathway. Our findings suggest that complement receptors C3aR and C5aR expressed on CD8+ tumor infiltrating lymphocytes represent a novel class of immune checkpoints that needs to be targeted for tumor immunotherapy. Our current effort is to enhance cancer immunotherapy through several strategies. First, we investigate a combined blockade of complement signaling and anti-PD-1 to enhance the antitumor efficacy; second, we are studying the antitumor efficacy of a targeted delivery of IL-10 to antitumor CD8+ T cells by using anti-PD1-IL-10 or anti-CTLA-4-IL-10 fusion proteins; third, we are studying the tumor killing efficacy of addition of IL-10 in the expansion protocol of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes for adaptive cellular therapy.
Part II is to investigate the intracellular process termed autophagy in T lymphocyte function. Autophagy is a highly conserved self-digestion pathway that plays essential roles in maintaining the homeostasis of organelles, degrading long-lived proteins and recycling amino acids under starvation conditions. We have found that autophagy related molecules are expressed in T lymphocytes and autophagy occurs inside T lymphocytes. We have generated autophagy-deficient T lymphocytes in multiple genetic models and investigated the roles of autophagy in T lymphocytes. We found that autophagy plays a critical role in T lymphocyte function. Our current effort is to elucidate the molecular pathways by which TCR signal induces autophagy and the impact of autophagy on intracellular organelle homeostasis in dividing T cells.
Sheng Luo
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