BlueGirlRedState, check out the pneumonitis thread started by DogersGirl https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/8/topics/...

BlueGirlRedState- Ref Afinitor and pneumonitis: Report ANY sense of shortness of breath to your MO so they can monitor your lungs

Thanks Moth for sharing the link. I shared my struggles hoping to help othet

CDK inhibitors may boost the effectiveness of immune therapy in metastatic breast cancer

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A class of drugs that inhibits breast cancer progression when used with hormonal therapy might also boost the effectiveness of immune therapy in cases of recurrent, metastatic breast cancer, according to a new study led by researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC - James).

Published in the journal Cell Reports, the findings of the animal study suggest that drugs called CDK4 and CDK6 (CDK4/6) inhibitors might improve the effectiveness of immune therapies for metastatic, estrogen-receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer.

We know that CDK4/6 inhibitors effectively slow the progression of newly diagnosed breast cancer, but they don't kill cancer cells. Consequently, the disease often recurs, and then it is usually fatal because we have no effective therapies for recurrent disease. Our findings suggest that combining CDK4/6 inhibitors with immunotherapy might offer an effective treatment for recurrent, metastatic ER+ breast cancer."
Anna Vilgelm, MD, principal investigator, a member of the OSUCCC - James Translational Therapeutics Program and assistant professor at the Ohio State College of Medicine

Specifically, the study shows that CDK4/6 inhibitors can improve the efficacy of T-cell-based therapies such as adoptive T-cell transfer or T-cell-activating antibodies in animal models of breast cancer.

Immune therapies are proving to be effective treatments for a variety of cancers but not for advanced breast cancer. One problem is that breast tumors often have low numbers of cancer-killing T lymphocytes within the tumor. Such tumors tend to respond poorly to immune therapies.

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"In addition, breast cancer patients with low numbers of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes often have worse survival compared to patients with high numbers of infiltrating lymphocytes in their tumors," says Vilgelm.

The new study shows that CDK4/6 inhibitors cause breast tumors to secrete small proteins called chemokines that attract T cells. This can help to improve patients' response to cancer immunotherapies.

For this study, Vilgelm and her colleagues used the oral CDK inhibitor palbociclib, mouse models, breast cancer cell lines and analyses of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) to study the influence of CDK4/6 inhibitors and chemokine production in the tumor immune microenvironment and on patient outcomes.

Key findings include:

• Pre-treatment with a CDK4/6 inhibitor improves recruitment of T cells into tumors and improved the outcome of adoptive cell therapy in animal models;
• CDK4/6 inhibitor-treated human breast cancer cells produce T-cell-recruiting chemokines;
• TCGA analysis showed that chemokine expression is a favorable prognostic factor in breast cancer patients;
• mTOR-regulated metabolic activity is required for chemokine induction by CDK4/6 inhibition;
• T-cell-recruiting chemokines may be useful prognostic markers for stratifying patients for immunotherapy treatment.

"Overall," Vilgelm says, "our findings suggest that CDK4/6 inhibitors may offer a therapeutic strategy that can attract T cells into breast cancer tumors, which may increase their sensitivity to immune therapies."

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210510/CDK-inhibitors-may-boost-the-effectiveness-of-immune-therapy-in-metastatic-breast-cancer.aspx

Thank you. When I was first diagnosed I was still working in a corporate type job and probably would have done some type of reconstruction. Now that I’ve retired at 62, I actually wouldn’t be upset about going flat. My surgeon did an outstanding job of a very tight, smooth closure. Half flat isn’t bad either but I really think I’ll pursue another mastectomy if I even have a choice.

All the best to you !

it is like every time I want to read an article they want me to sign up but I’m not going to do that it’s really getting annoying. I’m not going tohave 10 million passwords floating around.

Springdaisy, usually abstract is enough to know if you want to read deeper. I'd say I am usually directly interested in 5 % of articles, and try to get those by choosing physician:) or looking around for other free-access. Saulius

debbew, I came here to post the same news. It sounds so promising. They are trying to apply their process to covid 19, I wonder if it will help streamline clinical trials for actual patient use.

From April 21: Patients undergoing hormone therapy for breast and prostate cancers may be at increased risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) as they age and should be closely monitored for potential cardiovascular events, according to a scientific statement from the American Heart Association (AHA).

https://www.medpagetoday.com/hematologyoncology/breastcancer/92274?th=1&xid=fb-md-cbtm-onc-ptalz&trw=no&scrf=1&fbclid=IwAR31hAIO0h0H9AUT-ZDe939heoQGifo5eVDzgpMbUPksP8Ez9j6ZWHcx14M

On COVID vaccine and cancer:

Cancer Patients Develop 'Adequate' Immune Response to COVID Vax

Immunotherapy & chemotherapy together might NOT give very good covid 19 vaccination response - or it might be having breast or lung cancer that drove the difference

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaoncology/full...

"the only treatment regimen associated with significantly lower IgG levels on multivariable analysis was chemotherapy with immunotherapy; however, only 14 patients received this combination therapy, and no association was seen with either chemotherapy or immunotherapy alone. Given that chemotherapy combined with immunotherapy is only used in select cancer types (eg, lung cancer, triple-negative breast cancer), it is possible that other cancer-specific factors drove the observation in this small subset."

BSandra: Your post comes less than a week after I met a woman on the golf course who was diagnosed 8 years ago at age 57 with De Novo Stage 4 Triple Negative breast cancer. I wish that scientists could figure out why some women seem to come out on top of this damn disease and appear to flourish. I had seen her several years ago in my weight lifting class at the gym and of course, I had no idea that she had breast cancer. I don't know if this is relevant or not, but at age 65, she looks more like 45 and has a natural, lean, muscular build - I assume her body fat is very low. Perhaps she has an exceptional internal metabolism and immune system, or is simply a good responder to treatment. What is the bitter pill is that she had a mammogram 6 months before her diagnosis that was passed on as clear, and that she found the lump herself in the shower.

Oh, yes, Saulius, possibly curing deNovo HER2+ MBC was discussed at esmo 2021 also. I grabbed four slides that were shared on Twitter, I’ll try to post here. Also, I saw an older YouTube video, which I can’t find anymore, where the researcher talked about the need to study the question and how it could be similar to leukemia patients on Gleevec who were doing very well but no one knew how or when or if the medication could be discontinued until they finallyset up some trials.

of course at the end he asks “are we crazy” 😂 if daring to think outside the box is crazy maybe so. Wish I could

have seen the whole presentation

PAKNC, I'd be wondering where her mets are. I know another mTNBC long hauler online and her single solitary met was to a distant lymph node. I know there's discussion about reclassifying those as 3C as those tend to be the outliers in mTN & likely should be treaed with curative intent.

my only takeaway from ASCO at this point is that it is increasingly clear that breast cancer is not one disease & so we can't really talk about a cure for breast cancer any more than it makes sense to talk about a 'cure for cancer' (as in generic cancer). We have some hope for groups in small subsets with very speciic presentations but I don't think that even takes us closer to cures for others - each one has to be painstakingly broken down and the pathways sorted. Given how much variability and how many genes are involved, I don't think it's a simple plan at all.

Yes, Lily, I searched him on YouTube and saw him speak in a few videos, he seems very caring as well as smart