Hadeel Assad, M.D., medical oncologist, member of the Breast Cancer Multidisciplinary Team (MDT) and Phase 1 Clinical Trials Program at Karmanos, along with hematology and medical oncology graduating fellow at Karmanos and Wayne State University (WSU) School of Medicine, Bayan Al-Share, M.D., co-authored “Role of High-Dose Adjuvant Chemotherapy (HDC) Followed by Autologous Stem Cell Transplantation (ASCT) in Locally Advanced Triple-Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC): A Retrospective Chart Review,” published in Hindawi Journal of Oncology. Co-leaders of Karmanos’ Bone Marrow & Stem Cell Transplant (BMT) MDT, Voravit Ratanatharathorn, M.D., and Joseph Uberti, M.D., Ph.D., along with BMT members Abhinav Deol, M.D., Asif Alavi, M.D., Dipenkumar Modi, M.D., Andrew Kin, M.D., and Lois Ayash, M.D., contributed to the research. Judith Abrams, Ph.D., member of the Tumor Biology and Microenvironment Research Program at Karmanos, also collaborated in the study.
“Due to the robustness of the BMT database at Karmanos, we are able to evaluate many scientific questions related to transplant patients and encourage our HemOnc fellows to take advantage of this unique opportunity,” explained Dr. Assad. “This is the first study in many years that involved collaboration between both breast and transplant oncologists. We reviewed 29 women with confirmed TNBC treated with HDC and ASCT between 1995 and 2001. We excluded patients with unknown HER2/neu status and selected for high-risk features such as T4 disease or >4 regional node involvement. Our study revealed prolonged DFS and OS with acceptable side effect profile. We concluded that re-evaluation of this approach in this subset of high-risk breast cancer in prospective randomized studies may be worthwhile, realizing the recent approval of immunotherapy and adjuvant Olaparib, a subset of patients will also have to be taken into account.”
Read the study here.