OncTimes Talk Research Review August 2022: Focus on Breast Cancer

Journalist Peter Goodwin gives OncTimes Talk a whirlwind review of the top 2022 breast cancer research as he reports live in person from the 2022 ESMO Berlin meeting. Featuring the following interviews with leading experts:


1. Patient-Reported Outcomes Support First-Line Pembrolizumab in TNBC:


David Cescon, MD, PhD, Medical Oncologist and Clinician Scientist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto, Canada discusses analysis of patient-reported outcomes in the KEYNOTE-355 study in which adding pembrolizumab immunotherapy to chemotherapy did not impair health-related quality of life among patients with previously untreated, programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) -positive advanced, triple negative breast cancer (TNBC). :


2. Combination Therapy to Convert Immunologically “Cold” Breast Tumors into “Hot” Ones:


Alex De Caluwe, MD, Radiation Oncologist at the Institut Jules Bordet in Brussels, Belgium tells us about after his group’s findings from a “safety run-in” of the Neo-CheckRay study which raise hopes that immunologically “cold” breast cancers that do not respond to the new immune therapies such as checkpoint inhibitors could be converted into “hot” tumors, that could potentially be cured by them. :


3. Multidisciplinary Precision Extends Life with Breast Cancer Oligometastatic Disease:


Philip Poortmans, MD, PhD, from the University of Antwerp in Belgium, Senior Staff Member in the Iridium Netwerk’s Radiation Oncology Department, who chaired the “Multidisciplinary Tumour Board” session on Oligometastatic Diseases, tells us how a multidisciplinary approach targeting more than a single site of metastasis could bring significant gains in overall survival to patients whose breast cancer can be described as oligometastatic (having limited spread). :


4. Multidisciplinary Teams Can Help Many Breast Cancer Survivors Start Families:


Radiation Oncologist Orit Kaidar-Person, MD, Head of the Breast Cancer Unit at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, Ramat Gan, in Israel, tells OncTimes Talk why powerful new data about pregnancy outcomes among women who have survived breast cancer support the choice many of them take of going ahead with a pregnancy despite facing breast cancer treatment and uncertainties about their future health.