- Although triple-negative breast cancer is challenging to treat, some hope may be on the horizon thanks to a cancer-killing virus called TVEC (talimogene laherparepvec).
- In a phase 2 clinical trial, 45.9% of patients who received TVEC injections directly to the tumor during chemotherapy had no signs of cancer after surgery.
- The next step is to conduct a phase 3 clinical trial to confirm the efficacy of TVEC for triple-negative breast cancer in a larger study population.
Triple-negative breast cancer, which accounts for
This means that the tumor cells do not respond to hormone therapy or drugs that target HER2.
Currently, the preferred treatment approach for triple-negative breast cancer is neoadjuvant chemotherapy, a type of chemotherapy administered before the main treatment for cancer, such as surgery or radiation therapy.
Doctors administer it to shrink the size of a tumor, making it easier to remove that tumor with surgery, or to make radiation therapy more effective.
Researchers at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Florida are seeking to improve the treatment of triple-negative breast cancer by combining neoadjuvant chemotherapy with the use of a cancer-killing virus — termed an “oncolytic virus” — called TVEC (talimogene laherparepvec).
In 2021, Dr. Hatem Soliman, a medical oncologist specializing in breast cancer, and his coworkers at Moffitt Cancer Center published the findings of a phase 1 study of TVEC combined with neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients with triple-negative breast cancer. The results demonstrated the safety and feasibility of this approach.
Now, Dr. Soliman and his team have conducted a phase 2 clinical trial to further investigate this treatment. The results of the phase 2 trial have been published in
Some patients with triple-negative…
Read the full article here