Dr. Sikov on Bevacizumab or Carboplatin Impact On TNBC Subtype

William Sikov, MD, with the Women and Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, discusses his study on the addition of bevacizumab (Avastin) or carboplatin on pathologic complete response (pCR) rates in women with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) after standard neoadjuvant chemotherapy.

The study showed that adding carboplatin to neoadjuvant chemotherapy increases pCR by 14% absolute in TNBC patients, which is clinically and significantly significant, says Sikov, who is also the associate professor of medicine at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

These results confirm an earlier analysis of the study presented last year. At this point, further data is needed to determine if this will translate into long-term outcomes such as relapse-free survival or overall survival. It has not yet been determined if there is a sub-group of patients that could get a larger benefit from carboplatin or a group that doesn’t benefit from carboplatin at all.

The results did suggest that bevacizumab could significantly improve pCR rates in the TNBC subgroup of women with basal-like breast cancer, when compared with non-basal-like subtypes. Eighty-seven percent of triple-negative breast cancer included in the study was determined to be basal-like.

This raises the possibility that there may be sub-groups of patients who get a larger benefit from the addition of bevacizumab, says Sikov.

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