Innovative new medicines used in conjunction with neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) may lead to a higher pathological complete response (pCR), and therefore a better chance of survival for patients diagnosed with eTNBC cancer. The Edinburgh Cancer Informatics, in partnership with DATA-CAN, ran a retrospective, longitudinal cohort study using routinely collected data to better describe differences in survival outcomes between eTNBC patients achieving pCR. The data was collected from 2 UK Cancer Centres – the Edinburgh Cancer Centre (NHS Lothian), and Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.
The combined Leeds-Edinburgh cohort comprised 228 women, diagnosed with eTNBC between 1st January 2010 and 31st December 2016, treated with NACT and with a median follow-up of 4.5 years. pCR was documented in 74 (33%) of patients. 5 years after diagnosis, 96% of patients achieving pCR were alive compared with 61% of non-pCR patients, and pCR patients were 29% less likely to have experienced an event-free survival event. The NACT regimens administered were: sequential anthracycline-taxane (76%), anthracycline only (19%), taxane only (<5%), platinum-containing regimens (<3%). Survival outcomes were obtained through Kaplan-Meier analysis of overall survival, and event-free survival.
In conclusion, the study found that patients with a pCR status who received NACT had improved survival outcomes compared to those without a pCR status. This demonstrates that without pCR, patients had poorer survival outcomes. The study succeeded in showing the differences of survival outcomes between pCR and non-pCR patients.
An abstract was submitted to the NCRI in 2021.
Full results and methodology can be found here.
This study was sponsored by Roche.
