Dr. Waks on the Continued Evaluation of Immunotherapy in HER2+ Breast Cancer

Adrienne G. Waks, MD, physician, associate director of Clinical Research, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, instructor in Medicine, Harvard Medical School, discusses the continued evaluation of immunotherapy in HER2-positive breast cancer.

Recently published data from the phase 3 IMpassion050 trial (NCT03726879) showed that atezolizumab (Tecentriq) did not add any benefit to pathological complete response rates when added to the standard-of-care regimen of 4 cycles of dose-dense doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide, followed by paclitaxel plus pertuzumab (Perjeta) and trastuzumab (Herceptin) in combination, Waks explains. Moreover, these data were similar all for patients, including those in the intent-to-treat and PD-L1–positive populations, Waks says.

The phase 2 KATE2 trial (NCT02924883) is evaluating ado-trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1; Kadcyla) in combination with atezolizumab in the metastatic setting, based on previous suggestive data that implied there may benefit to adding a checkpoint blockade for the PD-L1–positive subset of patients, Waks continues. Though data from KATE2 have not been read out, it is uncertain what role immune checkpoint blockade could have in HER2-positive breast cancer in the early and the later stage settings, Waks concludes.