The 3rd Immuno-Oncology

World Congress

Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease, including a wide range of pathological and clinical behaviors. Current treatment protocols, including radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and hormone replacement therapy, can cure most of patients, but, particularly in some subgroups like the triple negative or metastatic ones, effectiveness is not enough to impact on survival and more efforts are needed to develop alternative options.

Immunotherapy, as a novel strategy addressing the immune system, has demonstrated a strong potential in treating those highly mutated and immunogenic cancers.

Although breast cancer has long been considered a problematic target for immunotherapy, as it is immunologically “cold,” numerous recent preclinical and clinical reports now recommend that immunotherapy alone or in combination with chemotherapy, can be used to treat specific subsets of breast cancer patients.

Various strategies include not only immune-checkpoint inhibition with antiPD1s/PDL1s, but also vaccination and adoptive T-cell therapy (CAR-T).

Pembrolizumab, an anti-PD-1 human mAb, was tested in advanced triple negative patients. Expression of PD1 was detected in 60% of patients and efficacy in 27 cases: the overall response was 18.5%, with 1 complete remission reached. Atezolizumab, a human anti-PDL1, was tested with paclitaxel in 32 patients showing anti-tumor efficacy in 70% of TNBC patients. Avelumab, has been evaluated in a phase 2 clinical trial showing responses in 40 out of 168 patients (23.8%).

Several vaccine approaches, comprising of monovalent, polyvalent, and cellular vaccines, have been assessed, but results are not satisfactory due to the difficulties in identifying a set of tumor associated antigens able to personalize the treatment.

Adoptive T-cell transfer therapy is still on the run, mainly targeting HER2 positive tumors and new approaches using CAR-T seem effective and safe, meriting further development in clinical trials.

Phyllis Fung-Yi Cheung¹, Anna Bazarna¹, Elaine HL Siu², Jia Jin Yang¹, Sven-Thorsten Liffers¹, Konstantinos Savvatakis¹, Kristina Althoff¹, Daniel R Engel³, Camille Soun³, Jana K Striefler⁴, Marianne Sinn⁴, Marcus Bahra⁵, Helmut Oettle⁶, Peter Markus⁷, Smiths S Lueong¹, Jörg D Hoheisel⁸, Siu Tim Cheung², Jens T Siveke^1
1Institute of Developmental Cancer Therapeutics,, West German Cancer Center, University Hospital Essen, Germany
²Department of Surgery, Prince of Wales Hospital, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong
³Department of Immunodynamics, Institute of Experimental Immunology and Imaging, University Hospital Essen, Germany
⁴CONKO Study Group, Department of Medical Oncology, Haematology and Tumorimmunology, Universitätsmedizin Charité Berlin, Germany
⁵Department of Surgery, Charité University Hospital, Germany
⁶Praxis und Tagesklinik, Praxis und Tagesklinik, Germany
⁷Department of General, Visceral and Trauma Surgery, Elisabeth Hospital Essen, Germany
⁸Division of Functional Genome Analysis, German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ), Germany

Luisa Piccin¹, Pigozzo Jacopo¹, Valentina Salizzato¹, Paola Del Bianco², Aline Sueli Cohelo Fabricio¹, Laura Tiozzo Fasiolo¹, Massimo Gion³, Adolfo Favaretto⁴, Dario Palleschi⁴, Costanza De Rossi⁵, Fable Zustovich⁶, Beatrice Benetti¹, Alessio Fabozzi⁷, Gulia Pasello^1,8, Valentina Guarneri^1,8, Vanna Chiarion Sileni^1
1UOC Oncology 2, Veneto Institute of Oncology IOV-IRCCS, Italy
²Clinical Research Unit, Veneto Institute of Oncology IOV-IRCCS, Italy
³Regional Center for Biomarkers, SS Giovanni & Paolo Hospital, Italy
⁴Medical Oncology Unit, Cà Foncello Hospital, Italy
⁵Medical Oncology Unit, Angelo Hospital, ULSS 3 Serenissima, Italy
⁶Medical Oncology Unit, Belluno Hospital, ULSS 1, Italy
⁷UOC Oncology 3, Veneto Institute of Oncology IOV-IRCCS, Italy
⁸Department of Surgery, Oncology and Gastroenterology, University of Padova, Italy

Ildikó Fritz¹, Philippe Wagner¹, Håkan Olsson^1,2
1Department of Cancer Epidemiology, Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Sweden
²Department of Oncology, Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Sweden

Pedi Jakob¹, Roderich Bönninghoff², Silja McIntyre³, Daniel Debatin⁴, Benjamin Goeppert^5
1Radiology, St.Josefskrankenhaus  Heidelberg, Germany
²Surgery, St.Josefskrankenhaus  Heidelberg, Germany
³Gastroenterology, St.Josefskrankenhaus  Heidelberg, Germany
⁴Oncology, Onkologische Schwerpunktpraxis  Heidelberg, Germany
⁵Institute of Pathology, University Hospital Heidelberg, Germany

Gilles Tapolsky¹, Richard Curry, III², John Morris³, Catherine Muller⁴, Noonan Anne⁵, Vinay Puduvalli⁶, Olivier Rixe⁷, John Villano⁸, Robert Wesolowski⁵, Trecia Wise-Draper³, Ellmurah Yilmaz⁹, Ray Takigiku^1
1R&D, Bexion Pharmaceuticals, USA
²Oncology, CTI, USA
³Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Cincinnati, USA
⁴Cancer Center, University of New Mexico, USA
⁵Comprehensive Cancer Center, Ohio State University, USA
⁶Neuro-Oncology, MD Andersen Cancer Center, USA
⁷Cancer Center, University of New Mexico, USA
⁸Neuro-Oncology, University of Kentucky Cancer Center, USA
⁹The Taussig Cancer Institute, The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, USA