Immunotherapy for Breast Cancer: First FDA Approved Regimen

1 in 8 women will be affected by breast cancer, which is the most diagnosed malignancy among women. Although breast cancer was regarded as “immunologically cold”, recent studies demonstrate that immunotherapy can be successful employed in combination regimens for the treatment of triple negative breast cancer, an aggressive type of breast cancer without many treatment options available. In March 2019, the US Food and Drug Administration granted accelerated approval for the first immunotherapy-based regimen comprising atezolizumab in combination with protein-bound paclitaxel for patients with advanced metastatic TNBC, expressing programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) and without previous systemic treatment for metastatic disease. This immunotherapy-based regimen is not only a promising therapy for the TNBC patients, but it also represents an inspiring proof of concept for the development of more efficient advanced immunotherapy-based strategies for breast cancer treatment in the future.