Onkológia 1/2023

Progress and perspective of immunotherapy in the treatment of breast cancer

Breast cancer treatment is very complex and includes all available therapeutic modalities. The prognosis for many patients is gradually improving, mainly thanks to the early diagnosis and significant development of treatment options. One of the biggest advances recently in cancer therapy is immunotherapy. Checkpoint inhibitors have transformed treatment algorithms and are approved and used for the therapy of many malignant tumors, including breast cancer. It was considered as a minimally immunogenic tumor, but it is a heterogeneous group of diseases and today we already know that there are also breast cancers with a significant immunopathological component. The focus is primarily on the aggressive triple negative subtype. In addition to the treatment of advanced disease, the indication for the immunotherapy has recently expanded to include neoadjuvant and adjuvant administration. In addition to the standardized therapy of advancer malignancies, a large number of other clinical trials are also ongoing for other solid and hematological tumors.

Keywords: breast cancer, immunotherapy, checkpoint inhibitors, immunogenicity, triple negative subtype