Purpose: Although ongoing studies are assessing the efficacy of new systemic therapies for patients with triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), the overwhelming majority have excluded patients with brain metastases (BM). Therefore, we aim to characterize systemic therapies and outcomes in a cohort of patients with TNBC and BM managed with stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) and delineate predictors of increased survival.
Methods: We used our prospective patient registry to evaluate data from 2012 to 2023. We included patients who received SRS for TNBC-BM. A competing risk analysis was conducted to assess local and distant control.
Results: Forty-three patients with 262 tumors were included. The median overall survival (OS) was 16 months (95% CI 13-19 months). Predictors of increased OS after initial SRS include Breast GPA score > 1 (p < 0.001) and use of immunotherapy such as pembrolizumab (p = 0.011). The median time on immunotherapy was 8 months (IQR 4.4, 11.2). The median time to new CNS lesions after the first SRS treatment was 17 months (95% CI 12-22). The cumulative rate for development of new CNS metastases after initial SRS at 6 months, 1 year, and 2 years was 23%, 40%, and 70%, respectively. Thirty patients (70%) underwent multiple SRS treatments, with a median time of 5 months (95% CI 0.59-9.4 months) for the appearance of new CNS metastases after second SRS treatment.
Conclusions: TNBC patients with BM can achieve longer survival than might have been previously anticipated with median survival now surpassing one year. The use of immunotherapy is associated with increased median OS of 23 months.
Keywords: Brain metastases; Breast cancer; Gamma knife; Immunotherapy; Neuro oncology; Stereotactic radiosurgery; Triple negative breast cancer.
© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.