Nearly 40% of women with a notoriously difficult to treat, triple-negative breast cancer diagnosis had their cancer shrink or go away entirely with a new immunotherapy triple-drug treatment developed by researchers at Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Medicine.
The three-drug combination is made up of a histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor and two types of immunotherapy drugs that work to stop cancer cells from growing and fight off the cancer that is present, according to a Feb. 14 news release.
This combination also worked in 25% of women with a regular breast cancer diagnosis.
"To our knowledge, this is the first published study that investigates treatment with an HDAC inhibitor in combination with dual immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy in patients with advanced breast cancer” study co-author Elizabeth Jaffee, MD, a professor of oncology and deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, stated in the news release. "Heavily pre-treated advanced breast cancer remains an area of unmet need."
Future studies will focus on how the treatment works and how to make it as accessible and safe as possible for advanced breast cancer patients.