Jennifer L. Guerriero, PhD Dana-Farber Cancer Institute – Harvard Medical School Modulating the immune system as an anti-cancer strategy has shown great promise in some types of cancer, however there has been limited responses in breast cancer. While the main focus of immunotherapy has been on the adaptive immune system, namely T cells, harnessing innate […]
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Sheheryar K. Kabraji, BM BCh Dana-Farber Cancer Institute – Harvard Medical School While effective HER2-targeting drugs have greatly improved outcomes for patients with HER2-positive (HER2+) breast cancer, relapse and recurrence still occur. When HER2+ breast cancer returns after treatment, it is because some cancer cells survive killing, and are known as minimal residual disease (MRD). To
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Naiara Perurena, PhD, PharmD Brigham and Women’s Hospital – Harvard Medical School Around 15-20% of breast cancers are characterized by the amplification or overexpression of the receptor tyrosine kinase HER2 and are therefore classified as HER2-positive. In these tumors, HER2 drives tumor formation and progression by activating an oncogenic signaling cascade. Fortunately, the development of
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Jan Remsik, PhD, PharmD Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Leptomeningeal metastasis (LM), or the spread of tumor cells into the cerebrospinal fluid, is an increasingly common complication of cancer that results in rapid neurologic disability and death. Colonization of leptomeningeal space by cancer cells can take years or even decades after primary cancer diagnosis. The
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Laura Spring, MD Massachusetts General Hospital Localized breast cancer patients with higher risk disease are often treated with chemotherapy in the neoadjuvant (before surgery) setting. However, it is difficult to predict how breast cancer will respond to treatment given in the neoadjuvant setting and we currently lack any specific blood tests to help answer this
Jing Hu, PhD Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Metastasis is a major clinical hurdle in breast cancer treatment, with poor prognosis (5-year survival around 26.5%). Despite surgical resection of the primary tumor and systemic therapy to suppress residual disease, distant metastatic relapse may still occur within a few months to years, implying the existence of
Veerle Daniels, PhD Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Despite recent advances in treatment options, breast cancer remains the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in women. Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a subgroup of breast cancer that is characterized by the absence of the estrogen receptor, the progesterone receptor and HER2-amplification. Because of the lack of these
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Ana Garrido-Castro, MD Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Choosing the best treatments for metastatic breast cancer depends increasingly on molecular features, such as tumor subtype. Patients with hormone receptor-positive/HER2-negative breast cancer are typically treated initially with hormonal therapies, and then subsequently with chemotherapy once hormonal therapy loses its effectiveness. Loss of hormone receptor expression has been described as a
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