08/20/2021
On July 26, 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the immunotherapy medicine Keytruda (chemical name: pembrolizumab) plus chemotherapy before surgery, followed by Keytruda alone after surgery to treat early-stage triple-negative breast cancer with a high risk of recurrence (the cancer coming back).
Triple-negative breast cancer is:
estrogen-receptor-negative
progesterone-receptor-negative
HER2-negative
Triple-negative breast cancers are usually more aggressive, harder to treat, and more likely to recur than cancers that are hormone-receptor-positive or HER2-positive. Triple-negative breast cancers don’t usually respond to hormonal therapy medicines or medicines that target the HER2 protein.
Keytruda is a type of immunotherapy medicine known as an immune checkpoint inhibitor. Immune checkpoint inhibitors essentially take the brakes off the immune system by blocking checkpoint inhibitor proteins on cancer cells or on the T cells that respond and attack the cancer cells.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Keytruda plus chemotherapy before surgery, followed by Keytruda alone after surgery to treat early-stage triple-negative breast cancer with a high risk of recurrence.
