Concurrent Adjuvant Carboplatin and Accelerated Radiotherapy for Triple Negative Breast Cancer

Preliminary experience in the neo-adjuvant setting of Locally Advanced Breast Cancer (LABC) has recently demonstrated that hormone receptors negative patients have approximately 50% chance to achieve a pathological response after concurrent chemo-radiation. In a multi-institutional collaboration of 105 patients it was found that triple negative (TN) tumor carriers achieved pathological response in 54% of the cases and that the response reflected on 5-year disease free survival and overall survival. Our group has speculated that these effects on the risk of distant recurrence could depend on the recovery of antitumor immunity among the patients achieving pathological response, after tumor cell death induced by concurrent chemo-radiation.

The investigators are proposing a novel study that translates these findings to the adjuvant setting of TN tumors. TN breast cancer is a more aggressive form of the disease often coinciding with basal-like tumors. BRCA mutated-cancer is more frequently TN.

The current protocol converges the experience NYU has developed in accelerated prone breast radiotherapy with encouraging finding from the use of concurrent chemoradiation in LABC.

The investigators will study the feasibility of combining weekly carboplatin with concurrent 3-weeks prone breast radiotherapy in the adjuvant setting of 35 women with TN tumors, after segmental mastectomy and nodal assessment. Primary endpoint of the study is acute toxicity of the combined regimen, with a target of < 25% of grade II-III dermatitis.

Inclusion criteria

• Age older than 18
• Pre- or post-menopausal women with Stage I and II breast cancer, triple negative tumors
• Biopsy-proven invasive breast cancer, excised with negative margins of at least 1 mm
• Status post segmental mastectomy, after sentinel node biopsy and/or axillary node dissection (Tumors < 5 mm in size do not require nodal assessment) or after mastectomy
• No previous chemotherapy
• Patient needs to be able to understand and demonstrate willingness to sign a written informed consent document

Exclusion criteria

• Previous radiation therapy to the ipsilateral breast
• Active connective tissue disorders, such as lupus or scleroderma
• Pregnant or lactating women