Is it possible to predict the efficacy of immunotherapy in triple-negative breast cancer?

Fondazione Gianni Bonadonna and Prada Group, Supporting Partner of the foundation, in their mutual commitment to promote innovation in clinical research, are pleased to share the results of an important paper, just published in Nature, conducted by Fondazione Michelangelo and the Cancer Research Institute UK Cambridge on 243 triple-negative breast cancer patients enrolled in the NeoTRIP trial, designed and led by the Michelangelo Foundation.
Breast cancer is the leading cause of death in woman, in most of the countries around the world, including Italy. However, the clinical behavior of this disease is extremely heterogeneous. The triple-negative subgroup, despite only accounting for 15% of all breast cancer cases, is particularly aggressive and contributes proportionally more to cases with a worse prognosis.
Immunotherapy, now used in clinical practice in Italy, has transformed the treatment of many solid tumors, and clinical trials have shown that it can benefit also patients with triple-negative breast cancer. However, immunotherapy lacks reliable methods of predicting which patients really benefit from the treatment, and which do not, in order to offer them viable therapeutic alternatives.
The team of this research found that it is possible to identify unique features in tumors that differ from patient to patient, with an impact on the response to immunotherapy. Data from this research show how identifying specific tumor characteristics – that is how cells are made and where they are located – can predict the response to immunotherapy in triple-negative breast tumors.