Assessing the role of platinum agents in aggressive breast cancers

As anticipated by their structure and mechanism of action, platinum analogs exhibit clinically significant antitumor activity in the more aggressive forms of breast cancer, both alone and in combination with other cytotoxic agents and targeted therapies. In early-stage human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER2)-positive breast cancer, the administration of carboplatin together with a taxane (usually docetaxel) and trastuzumab (and pertuzumab in the neoadjuvant setting) is a standard of care regimen. In BRCA1 mutation carriers, neoadjuvant treatment with single-agent cisplatin results in a high pathologic complete response (pCR) rate. In both BRCA-mutated and sporadic triple-negative breast cancer, the addition of carboplatin to neoadjuvant chemotherapy significantly increases pCR rates. Despite these encouraging results, many questions remain about the role of platinum analogs in these patient populations, including their optimal doses and schedules, and utility in patients with advanced stage disease. A number of these questions are addressed by ongoing trials.