First immunotherapy for breast cancer approved!

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the use of Atezolizumab (Tecentriq) to treat unresectable locally advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer in tumors expressing PD-L1.

The immunotherapy had been previously approved for urothelial cancer and non-small cell lung cancer.

Atezolizumab is approved for use with paclitaxel protein-bound.

Roughly 900 patients who had not previously received chemotherapy were randomised to either Atezolizumab or placebo infusions. All received paclitaxel protein-bound.

Among those with PD-L1-positive tumours, progression-free survival was longer in those receiving Atezolizumab (7.4 vs. 4.8 months for placebo).