Roche Korea’s Tecentriq, the first immunotherapy to win indication for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), will be a significant turning point for the TNBC treatment, said a local oncology specialist.
TNBC is defined by the lack of expression and/or amplification of the targetable receptors for estrogen, progesterone, and HER2 amplification.
Roche obtained local approval for Tecentriq plus albumin-bound paclitaxel to treat patients with unresectable locally advanced or metastatic TNBC whose tumors have PD-L1 expression (≥1 percent) and who have not received prior chemotherapy for metastatic disease.
“Patients with TNBC lack the three receptors that major breast cancer therapies target, so treatment options are limited and the prognosis is poor,” Professor Im Seok-ah of the Department of Hemato Oncology at Seoul National University Hospital said during a news conference hosted by Roche Korea on Wednesday.
TNBC has a higher incidence among young patients than other subtypes of breast cancer, causing high socioeconomic costs, she added.
According to Im, the five-year survival rate of stage-1 patients cured after TNBC surgery is only 30 percent. With rare treatment options, doctors usually use chemotherapy as the standard of care.
Metastatic TNBC patients survive for only about one year and a half on average, despite the standard of care, and they desperately need a treatment to extend life, Im went on to say.
Tecentriq proved its effect to delay relapse and prolonged survival in the phase-3 Impassion130 study, which compared Tecentriq plus albumin-bound paclitaxel with albumin-bound paclitaxel alone.
The study results showed that the combination therapy recorded 7.5 months of median progression-free survival (mPFS) in patients who tested positive for PD-L1 expression, versus five months of mPFS in the albumin-bound paclitaxel group. The combo treatment reduced the risk of disease worsening or death by about 40 percent, compared with albumin-bound paclitaxel alone.
The median overall survival (mOS) stood at 25 months in the combo treatment group, whereas that of the control group was 18 months.
“As the Tecentriq plus paclitaxel combo meaningfully improved the mOS to over two years and mPFS in patients with metastatic TNBC, the drug is expected to be a significant turning point for the TNBC treatment,” Im emphasized.