Breast cancer research is a cornerstone of The Hope Foundation’s mission. We fund fellowships, training events, and collaborative research through the SWOG Cancer Research Network to support breakthroughs in early detection, prevention, and targeted therapies.
SWOG Study Finds Chemotherapy Combination May Help Some Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Patients
A SWOG clinical trial called S1416 looked at a new way to treat triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), a type of breast cancer that tends to be aggressive and has fewer targeted treatment options.
The trial tested whether adding a drug called veliparib, a type of PARP inhibitor, to standard cisplatin chemotherapy could help patients live longer without their cancer progressing. Importantly, the study focused on patients who did not have a BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation, but whose tumors behaved similarly to BRCA-mutated cancers. Scientists call this a “BRCA-like” pattern, or homologous recombination deficiency (HRD).
Findings:
Adding veliparib to chemotherapy helped slow cancer progression in patients whose tumors had this BRCA-like pattern — even though they didn’t carry the BRCA mutation itself. This suggests that the tumor’s behavior, not just its genetics, may help predict who benefits from this type of treatment.
Why it matters:
If a simple blood test can reliably identify patients with this BRCA-like tumor behavior, it could make it easier to match the right patients to this treatment without requiring a tissue biopsy.