Abstract:
Objective To explore the efficacy of anthracycline(A), anthracycline-taxane (A-T), and anthracycline-taxane/carboplatin (A-TP) neoadjuvant chemotherapy regimens in patients with breast cancer harboring germline mutations in DNA damage repair (DDR) genes.
Methods A total of 105 patients with operable primary breast cancer, carrying germline mutations in any of the 15 DDR genes, were given neoadjuvant treatment in Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute from October 2003 to May 2015. Among them, 69, 19, and 17 patients received the neoadjuvant regimens A, A-T, and A-TP, respectively. The pathological complete remission (pCR) rates of the three groups to the neoadjuvant chemotherapy were compared by χ2 or Fisher’s exact test. The Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and Cox proportional hazards model were used to determine the breast cancer-specific survival (BCSS) and recurrence-free survival (RFS) rates in patients with breast cancer.
Results 93.3% of patients received four to eight cycles of neoadjuvant chemotherapy. The respective pCR rates of the A, A-T, and A-TP groups were 11.6%, 21.1%, and 35.3%. The pCR rate of the A-TP group was significantly higher than that of the A group (P=0.028). The A-TP group also displayed a better pCR rate relative to that of the A-T group, but the difference was not statistically significant. After a median follow-up of 65.6 months, DDR gene mutation carriers treated with the A-TP regimen exhibited better BCSS (hazard ratio HR=0.50, 95% confidence interval CI: 0.09–2.73, P=0.41) and RFS (HR=0.51, 95%CI: 0.15–1.74, P=0.27) than patients treated with the A-T regimen; however, the variation did not reach the significance threshold.
Conclusions Results of this study suggested that patients with germline mutations in DDR genes can achieve higher pCR rates when carboplatin is added to the standard A-T-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy. The A-TP regimen also showed a trend towards better prognosis compared with the A regimen.