About this Research Topic
Recent years have seen many important advances in triple-negative breast cancer; from a better understanding of the heterogeneity of this breast cancer subtype to the identification of better treatment options. Immunotherapies, targeted agents, and antibody-drug conjugates all represent exciting new treatments for this difficult to treat disease. The neoadjuvant setting offers an important opportunity to learn more about the biology of TNBC. The treatment of patients with residual disease post-NAC and those with metastatic disease who test negative for PD-L1 and are BRCA wild type are limited and this remains an area of unmet clinical need.
The crucial role played by the dynamic relationship between cancer cells and their environment is under intense scrutiny and is considered to hold many of the clues as to how and why some patients respond to chemotherapy and/or immunotherapy and others do not. Understanding this relationship and how we might manipulate it will help us be more selective in who needs treatment with immunotherapy only, combination immunotherapy, chemoimmunotherapy or just chemotherapy and at what time point and duration they need it. The role of the microbiome in triple-negative breast cancer in terms of how it might influence prognosis and treatment response is an exciting and emerging area. As early-stage and locally advanced triple-negative breast cancer is mostly treated in the neoadjuvant setting this represents new challenges and opportunities for surgical and radiation oncologists. Patients with locally advanced TNBC represent a challenge to surgeons and radiation oncologists for example how best to treat patients progressing on NAC, or those with extensive residual disease, or those patients with extensive local disease who achieve pathological complete responses. How should newer radiation techniques be incorporated into treatment?
We welcome original research, clinical trials, population-based research, leading-edge reviews, cohort studies etc. Related but not limited to the aspects below:
1) Studies examining the breast microbiome and how it may influence prognosis and response to treatment.
2) The potential of artificial intelligence to improve the accuracy, precision, and efficiency of radiation therapy for women who have undergone neoadjuvant therapy for TNBC.
3) What could make ‘immune cold’ triple-negative breast cancers ‘immune hot’.
4) Contemporary treatment approaches for early-stage and metastatic TNBC.
5) The role of spatial phenotyping via multiplex immunofluorescence to visualize and quantitate protein and biomarker expression to reveal how cells interact and organize across the entire tissue landscape
6) The challenge of PD-L1 negative, BRCA wild type metastatic TNBC: how do we improve treatment options.
7) Considerations in the design of neoadjuvant trials in TNBC, how do we make sure we maximize the opportunity to learn from every patient on every trial?
Please note: Manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics, computational analysis, or predictions of public databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) will not be accepted in any of the sections of Frontiers in Oncology.
The crucial role played by the dynamic relationship between cancer cells and their environment is under intense scrutiny and is considered to hold many of the clues as to how and why some patients respond to chemotherapy and/or immunotherapy and others do not. Understanding this relationship and how we might manipulate it will help us be more selective in who needs treatment with immunotherapy only, combination immunotherapy, chemoimmunotherapy or just chemotherapy and at what time point and duration they need it. The role of the microbiome in triple-negative breast cancer in terms of how it might influence prognosis and treatment response is an exciting and emerging area. As early-stage and locally advanced triple-negative breast cancer is mostly treated in the neoadjuvant setting this represents new challenges and opportunities for surgical and radiation oncologists. Patients with locally advanced TNBC represent a challenge to surgeons and radiation oncologists for example how best to treat patients progressing on NAC, or those with extensive residual disease, or those patients with extensive local disease who achieve pathological complete responses. How should newer radiation techniques be incorporated into treatment?
We welcome original research, clinical trials, population-based research, leading-edge reviews, cohort studies etc. Related but not limited to the aspects below:
1) Studies examining the breast microbiome and how it may influence prognosis and response to treatment.
2) The potential of artificial intelligence to improve the accuracy, precision, and efficiency of radiation therapy for women who have undergone neoadjuvant therapy for TNBC.
3) What could make ‘immune cold’ triple-negative breast cancers ‘immune hot’.
4) Contemporary treatment approaches for early-stage and metastatic TNBC.
5) The role of spatial phenotyping via multiplex immunofluorescence to visualize and quantitate protein and biomarker expression to reveal how cells interact and organize across the entire tissue landscape
6) The challenge of PD-L1 negative, BRCA wild type metastatic TNBC: how do we improve treatment options.
7) Considerations in the design of neoadjuvant trials in TNBC, how do we make sure we maximize the opportunity to learn from every patient on every trial?
Please note: Manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics, computational analysis, or predictions of public databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) will not be accepted in any of the sections of Frontiers in Oncology.
Keywords: Triple negative breast cancer, Treatments, Biomarkers, Microbiome, Surgery, Radiation, Pathology
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
