Clinical Evaluation of Platinum Agents for the Treatment of Triple Negative Breast Cancer

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is defined by a lack of hormone receptor expression and HER2 overexpression/amplification. Because standard combination chemotherapy regimens are not associated with optimal treatment response in the majority of cases, there is an urgent need to develop novel therapeutic approaches for patients with TNBC. A particularly efficacy of platinum compounds in patients with TNBC has been suggested, in part, because of a strong correlation with TNBC and hereditary breast cancer based on BRCA mutations. Recent studies suggest efficacy of carboplatin in combination with anthracycline-taxane chemotherapy in the neoadjuvant setting, which has fostered hopes that carboplatin-based regimens may represent the treatment of choice among patients with TNBC. However, before these regimens may be safely introduced into daily clinical practice, several issues have to be addressed such as whether an increased response rate in neoadjuvant studies translates into an increased prognosis and what subgroup of patients with TNBC benefits most.