Triple Negative Breast Cancer IU Medical researchers Dr. Bryan Schneider and Dr. Milan Radovich
Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive type of cancer that lacks common traits used to diagnose and treat most other breast cancers. About 1 in 8 U.S. women will develop breast cancer in her lifetime.
TNBC 15%-20%
In 2017, an estimated 255,180 new cases of breast cancer were diagnosed in U.S. women.
All other types of breast cancer
TNBC accounts for 15%-20% of breast cancer cases.
Because TNBC is estrogen (ER), progesterone (PR) and (HER2) negative, traditional hormone and targeted treatments that focus on these receptors are ineffective.
ER
PR
HER2
chemo
TA R G E T E D HORMONE THERAPY THERAPY INEFFECTIVE INEFFECTIVE
surgery
radiation
EFFECTIVE T R E AT M E N T S
TNBC is more likely to spread to other parts of the body and reoccur after treatment.
FRESH HOPE
TNBC is more likely to affect African-American and Hispanic women.
IU MEDICAL RESEARCHERS PRESENT PROMISING CANCER STUDY RESULTS Writer / Christy Heitger-Ewing Photography Provided
Anyone who has beaten cancer likely often wonders, “What if it comes back?” Two Indiana University School of Medicine researchers, Dr. Bryan Schneider and Dr. Milan Radovich, have exciting new findings, however, that spell good news for cancer patients. Schneider and Radovich came up with a biomarker finding for women diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer that is now being taught and used worldwide. This pioneering research is part of the larger IU Precision Health Initiative, which received $120 million in funding from the IU Grand Challenges Program to research diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Type 2 diabetes, multiple myeloma and pediatric sarcomas (childhood cancers).
According to Schneider, breast cancer remains one of the most common cancer types for women in the U.S., with more than 250,000 women affected annually and approximately 40,000 dying of the disease. Triple-negative breast cancer tends to target young women and black women. Because it’s an aggressive form of breast cancer, even though it makes up a minority of cases, it causes a disproportionately high rate of mortality.
This research, which took place at 22 sites across the country, is made possible with funding from the Vera Bradley Foundation for Breast Cancer and the Walther Cancer Foundation. It is part of the Indiana University Precision Health Initiative Grand Challenge.
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“Women with triple-negative breast cancer who had Stage 1 through 3 disease are treated with chemo followed by surgery,” says Radovich, noting that there are two post-surgical outcomes. Either chemotherapy melts all of the tumor away (this occurs in approximately one-third of patients), or patients have residual disease post-surgery.
Led by Milan Radovich, PhD, and Bryan P. Schneider, MD, and using the most cutting edge technology, researchers have discovered which patients are most likely to remain disease free and which are likely to relapse following treatment for triple negative breast cancer.
In a new clinical trial, the team will be harnessing information from ctDNA analysis to determine a specialized treatment plan.
“Even though we remove that cancer, they 12/19
26 / AUGUST 2021
