A news outlet for oncologists featured an interview with Kari Wisinski, MD, associate professor (CHS), Hematology, Medical Oncology and Palliative Care. 

Dr. Wisinski discussed the evolving but challenging landscape of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) and therapies that are moving through the pipeline for TNBC as well as other breast cancer subtypes. She made her remarks in connection with her lecture at the 2017 American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting. 

“The key thing I talked about is how this is a different type of disease. Particularly, this affects younger women and African-American women, and it has an association with BRCA1 carriers,” said Dr. Wisinski.

She also focused on the role of chemotherapy - particularly a study published in late 2016 that supported the use of anthracyclines in TNBC for early-stage adjuvant therapy, as well as carboplatin and its role in neoadjuvant therapy for TNBC.

Regarding the potential of immunotherapy for TNBC, Dr. Wisinski expressed both hope and caution. "TNBC is not one disease and we know that there are multiple different subtypes of TNBC. That really ties into the immunotherapy question, because there has been a portion of women with TNBC who do seem to benefit from immunotherapy. But, we don’t have the ability to select which patients those are," she said.

Resources:

• "New Therapies Show Promise in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer," Cure, May 25, 2017