Event-free Survival with Pembrolizumab in Early Triple-Negative Breast Cancer

🤖 Plain-English Summary

BACKGROUND: The addition of pembrolizumab to neoadjuvant chemotherapy led to a significantly higher percentage of patients with early triple-negative breast cancer having a pathological complete response (defined as no invasive cancer in the breast and negative nodes) at definitive surgery in an earlier analysis of this phase 3 trial of neoadjuvant and adjuvant therapy. CONCLUSIONS: In patients with early triple-negative breast cancer, neoadjuvant pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy, followed by adj...

🔑 Key Findings

• The primary results regarding event-free survival in this trial have not been reported.
• METHODS: We randomly assigned, in a 2:1 ratio, patients with previously untreated stage II or III triple-negative breast cancer to receive neoadjuvant therapy with four cycles of pembrolizumab (at a dose of 200 mg) or placebo every 3 weeks plus paclitaxel and carboplatin, followed by four cycles of pembrolizumab or placebo plus doxorubicin-cyclophosphamide or epirubicin-cyclophosphamide.
• After definitive surgery, patients received adjuvant pembrolizumab (pembrolizumab-chemotherapy group) or placebo (placebo-chemotherapy group) every 3 weeks for up to nine cycles.

🔗 Related Resources