An exclusive “Ask the Expert” Q&A session with the esteemed medical oncologist from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Dr. Tiffany Traina, a luminary in the field of oncology, particularly in the battle against TNBC.

Below is a summary of the discussion with Dr. Traina.

When undergoing breast cancer treatment, especially in cases of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), assessing chemotherapy’s effectiveness is crucial. In metastatic settings, therapies are closely monitored, with physical symptoms, blood markers, and imaging scans offering key indicators. Improvements in symptoms, such as reduced pain and lowered tumor markers, often suggest the treatment is effective. Scans, including PET or CT, are typically done every three months to track changes in tumor size or stability, with stable scans considered a positive outcome, as they prevent cancer from spreading further.

For early-stage breast cancer, chemotherapy is used differently depending on timing relative to surgery. Post-surgery, chemotherapy serves as adjuvant therapy—a preventive measure without active monitoring since the tumor has already been removed. However, when chemotherapy and immunotherapy are administered before surgery (neoadjuvant therapy), tumor shrinkage can often be observed directly, and pre-surgery imaging confirms this progress.

Neoadjuvant therapy has shown a high response rate in TNBC, with up to 65% of patients achieving complete tumor disappearance before surgery. This contrasts with hormone-positive breast cancers, which show a lower response rate of about 20-25% to similar pre-surgery treatment. This responsiveness highlights TNBC’s unique potential to respond positively to combined chemotherapy and immunotherapy, giving patients a better chance for long-term success.

In both early and metastatic breast cancer, continued advancements in personalized treatments hold promise for increasingly favorable outcomes.