Olaparib in hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer with a somatic BRCA2 mutation

The oral poly(adenosine diphosphate-ribose) polymerase inhibitor olaparib is approved for the treatment of patients with human epidermal growth factor 2-negative (HER2-) metastatic breast cancer (mBC) and a germline breast cancer susceptibility gene (BRCA) mutation who have been treated with chemotherapy. This case report describes a 63-year-old postmenopausal woman with somatic BRCA2-mutated mBC who responded to olaparib treatment following multiple prior lines of therapy. The patient presented in January 2012 with locally advanced, hormone receptor-positive (HR+), HER2- BC which, despite initial response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy, recurred as bone disease in February 2014, and subsequently skin (June 2016) and liver (October 2016) metastases. A comprehensive 592-gene next-generation sequencing panel (Caris Life Sciences), performed on a skin biopsy, detected a pathogenic frameshift mutation in BRCA2 (H3154fs, c.9460delC), which was not identified in a 28-gene hereditary cancer germline analysis (Myriad Genetics, Inc.), and was therefore considered to be a somatic mutation. In January 2017, cell-free DNA (cfDNA) analysis (Guardant Health, Inc.) confirmed the BRCA2 H3154fs mutation in plasma. After several lines of chemotherapy and endocrine therapy, deriving clinical benefit from eribulin and capecitabine, the disease progressed by October 2017, and olaparib (300 mg orally twice daily) was initiated in January 2018. By April 2018, the liver lesions had shrunk by 80% and a >90% response in multiple skin lesions was noted. Clinical response was maintained for 8 months, followed by progression in the skin in September 2018. Biopsy of recurrent lesions revealed a novel BRCA2 mutation, E3152del (c.9455_9457delAGG), predicted to restore the open reading frame and presumably the mechanism of resistance to olaparib. Further likely resistance mutations were noted in subsequent cfDNA analyses. This case demonstrated a clinical response with olaparib as a later-line therapy for HR+, HER2- mBC with a somatic BRCA2 mutation.