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Pembrolizumab plus Chemotherapy for Neoadjuvant and Adjuvant Therapy in Early Triple-Negative Breast Cancer: KEYNOTE-522

May 2022, Vol 12, No 5

The current standard of care for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is chemotherapy with anthracyclines or taxanes, but the overall survival (OS) for this patient population is shorter than the OS in other subtypes of breast cancer, and the risk for disease recurrence or death is high among treatment-naïve patients with stage II or III TNBC. Early data for immune checkpoint inhibitors targeting PD-1 or PD-L1 expression in combination with chemotherapy in patients with TNBC have shown antitumor activity.

KEYNOTE-522 was a prospective, randomized, placebo-controlled, phase 3 clinical trial that compared the benefits of the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda) plus chemotherapy versus placebo plus chemotherapy in treatment-naïve patients with early-stage TNBC (Schmid P, et al. N Engl J Med. 2022;386:556-567). The study included a neoadjuvant phase and an adjuvant phase, as well as a control group. Patients were randomized (2:1) to neoadjuvant therapy with 4 cycles of pembrolizumab (200 mg) plus paclitaxel and carboplatin or to placebo plus paclitaxel and carboplatin every 3 weeks, followed by 4 cycles of pembrolizumab plus doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide or epirubicin and cyclophosphamide or to placebo plus these chemotherapies. After undergoing definitive surgery, patients received adjuvant pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy or placebo plus chemotherapy every 3 weeks, for up to 9 cycles. The primary end points were pathologic complete response or event-free survival (EFS).

The study enrolled 1174 patients with stage II or stage III TNBC. The estimated EFS at 36 months was 84.5% in the pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy group and 76.8% in the placebo plus chemotherapy group; the median EFS was not reached in either group. In the EFS analysis, the most common event was distant recurrence (7.7 vs 13.1, respectively). The OS data were not mature at the time of the analysis. At a median follow-up of 39.1 months, 15.7% in the pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy group and 23.8% in the placebo plus chemotherapy group had an adverse event (AE) or died (hazard ratio, 0.63; 95% confidence interval, 0.48-0.82; P <.001). No new safety concerns were identified with the pembrolizumab regimen. In the combined neoadjuvant and adjuvant phases, grade 3 or 4 AEs were observed in 77.1% of patients in the pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy arm and in 73.3% of those in the placebo plus chemotherapy group. The rate of immune-mediated AEs of any grade was 33.5% in the pembrolizumab arm and 11.3% in the placebo arm, including 12.9% and 1.0% grade ≥3, respectively. Treatment-related AEs led to 4 deaths in the pembrolizumab arm and to 1 death in the placebo arm.

“The results of this trial support the use of pembrolizumab plus platinum-, taxane-, and anthracycline-containing neoadjuvant chemotherapy, followed by adjuvant pembrolizumab after surgery, as a treatment regimen for patients with high-risk, early triple-negative breast cancer, regardless of tumor PD-L1 expression status,” the researchers concluded.

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