Therapy options for metastatic triple negative breast cancer

Abstract

Metastatic triple-negative breast cancer remains the most unfavourable among all breast cancer subtypes from the prognostic point of view. Despite the active introduction into practice of combinations of cytostatics with immunotherapeutic agents, as well as PARP inhibitors, sequential lines of chemotherapy with the median overall survival which does not exceed 15 months remains the main method of treating patients in this group. This breast cancer subtype is characterized by a rapid development of drug resistance at the early stages of systemic treatment and a predominantly visceral progression, which determines a low life expectancy in patients. The combination of capecitabine and ixabepilone has proved to be effective in the treatment of tumours that are resistant to taxanes and anthracyclines. The use of this combination is characterized by an acceptable and controlled toxicity profile. This article presents a clinical case of therapy with a combination of ixabepilone and capecitabine of a patient with breast cancer progression during the previous therapy of taxanes, a platinum-based doublet chemotherapy and eribulin. This approach, together with symptomatic laparocentesis and pleurodesis, allowed for overall survival exceeding 45 months with the preservation of a satisfactory functional status of the patient.