A new group of patients with triple negative breast cancer warns of a situation deemed “catastrophic”.
- Triple negative breast cancer is very difficult to treat.
- Despite positive results, France did not authorize the use of the immunotherapy and chemotherapy combination atezolizumab/nab-paclitaxel, which represented a ray of hope for all patients.
Thousands of women, sometimes very young, die regularly in France from breast cancer says “triple negative, for lack of access to innovative treatments which, however, exist elsewhere in the world”. This is what the new collective denounces #MobilizationTriplets of patients with triple negative breast cancer.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer in France: approximately 1 in 8 women will be affected during her lifetime. Despite very high cure rates, some types of breast cancer are still difficult to treat: this is the case with so-called “triple negative”, that affect 13,000 women a year.
A new treatment available in the United States
This cancer does not express hormone receptors (estrogen and progesterone), and does not overexpress HER2, which promotes tumor growth. No targeted treatment is available to slow its progression, as it is neither sensitive to hormone therapy, which blocks the action of hormones, nor to Herceptin, an anti-HER2 treatment.
However, several studies have shown that a new hope for treating triple-negative breast cancer would be immunotherapy, which involves reactivating the immune system to fight cancer cells. In particular, one trial proved that the use of atezolizumab, in combination with nab-paclitaxel chemotherapy, significantly increased the survival of certain patients.
In the United States, the atezolizumab/nab-paclitaxel combination has been available for triple-negative breast cancer since 2019. The pembrolizumab/chemotherapy combination has also just been approved by the FDA. Despite this, in March 2020, the Haute Autorité de Santé (HAS) refused reimbursement of the immunotherapy atezolizumab associated with nab-Paclitaxel.
Angry patients and doctors
“So, despite positive results, France did not authorize the use of the combination immunotherapy and chemotherapy atezolizumab / nab-paclitaxel, which represented a ray of hope for all patients”, deplores the group of patients in a press release. “This has generated amazement, incomprehension, discouragement and anger within families, doctors and associations who strongly denounce this decision”, conclude the patients.
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