Clinical activity of adjuvant cytokine-induced killer cell (CIK) immunotherapy in post-mastectomy triple-negative breast cancer patients

Menée sur 90 patientes atteintes d'un cancer du sein triplement négatif, cette étude rétrospective évalue l'efficacité, du point de vue de la survie sans maladie et de la survie globale, d'un traitement adjuvant séquentiel comprenant une immunothérapie à base de lymphocytes tueurs et une chimiothérapie

Résumé en anglais

Purpose: Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a high risk form of this disease, even after surgery, due to the absence of targets for hormone treatment and anti-Her-2 therapy. Chemotherapy is the main therapeutic strategy for such breast cancer patients although the outcome is often unsatisfactory. Thus, the development of combination adjuvant therapies is essential for improved prognosis in TNBC patients. In this study, we investigated the efficacy of a sequential combination of cytokine-induced killer cell (CIK) infusion and chemotherapy for post-mastectomy TNBC patients.

Experimental Design: From 2008 to 2012, 90 post-mastectomy TNBC patients were included in this retrospective study: 45 cases received chemotherapy alone or with sequential radiotherapy; a further 45 cases received chemotherapy with/without radiotherapy and sequential CIK infusion.

Results: Survival analysis showed significantly higher disease-free survival (DFS) rate and overall survival (OS) rates in the CIK treatment group compared with the control group (p = 0.0382, p = 0.0046, respectively; log-rank test). Multivariate survival analysis showed that CIK adjuvant treatment was an independent prognostic factor for OS of TNBC patients. In subgroup analyses, CIK adjuvant treatment significantly increased the DFS rate of patients with pathological grade III, and significantly increased the OS rate of patients in N1, N2, N3-stage, IIB, III TNM stage and with pathological grade III.

Conclusions: These data indicate that adjuvant CIK treatment combined with chemotherapy is an effective therapeutic strategy to prevent disease recurrence and prolong survival of TNBC patients, particularly those with lymph node metastasis, advanced TNM-stage and poor pathological grade.