Abstract 4894: Incidence of high tumor mutation burden (TMB) and PD-L1 positivity in breast cancers and potential response to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICPIs)
Authors: Sokol Ethan , Albacker Lee , Soyano Aixa , Parrondo Ricardo , Ernst Brenda , Gabriel Emmanuel , Frampton Garrett , Ross Jeffrey , Ali Siraj , Chung Jon , Chumsri Saranya 
Published: August 2019

Background: Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICPIs) have led to dramatic improvement in outcome of several cancers. Program death ligand1 (PD-L1) staining and tumor mutational burden (TMB) have emerged as independent predictive biomarkers of ICPIs in lung cancer. Here we examine the landscape of TMB and PD-L1 expression in breast cancer and present a case of patient with high TMB and PD-L1 negative breast cancer with exceptional response to ICPIs.

Methods: Hybrid-capture based comprehensive genomic profiling of 395 cancer related genes using the FoundationOne assay was performed on 14,867 breast carcinomas sequenced in the course of routine clinical care. Ventana (SP-263) PD-L1 status (n=1425) and hormone receptor status was available for a subset of patients. Subgroup analyses were performed based on histological type [invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC, n=740)], molecular subtypes [ER-positive (ER+; n= 1371), HER2-amplified (HER2+; n=1522), and TNBC (n=917)], patient age (≤45, 46-60, ≥61), and local vs. metastatic disease (n=5241 and 6710).

Results: Consistent with previous reports, the rates of positive PD-L1 staining are highest in TNBC (14%) and lowest in HER2+, ILC, and ER+ disease (6.0%, 5.1%, 2.3%). Interestingly, the rate of PD-L1 positivity, defined as ≥1% tumor staining, was significantly lower in metastatic disease vs. local disease (6.3% vs. 11.1%; p = 0.005). The frequency of high TMB, defined as &gt;10 mutations/mb, was greatest in ILC and HER2+ disease (13.6% and 9.9%) and lowest in TNBC and ER+ disease (7.0% and 6.9%). Rates of high TMB were associated with increased patient age (3.7%, 9.3%, and 12.8% frequency in patients ≤45, 46-60, and ≥61) and were significantly higher in metastatic vs. local disease (11.1% vs 5.3%; p&lt;2E-23). PD-L1 positive and TMB high populations were not significantly co-occurrent (OR = 1.02, p = 0.87). Similar percentages of PD-L1 positivity were observed in both TMB low (9.3%) and TMB high (9.5%). However, among patients with very high TMB (&gt;20 mut/mb), there was a significant association between TMB and PD-L1 positivity (OR = 2.6, p = 0.023). Nevertheless, even with high cutoff, 79% of the TMB high samples were PD-L1 negative.

We also report on a stage IIIb (T4, N2, M0) ER+ HER2- breast cancer patient with high TMB (40muts/mb) and negative PD-L1 IHC who previously progressed on aromatase inhibitor with CDK4/6 inhibitor and chemotherapy but achieved durable complete response of &gt; 1 year with nivolumab in combination with capecitabine.

Conclusions: Predictive biomarkers for ICPIs are critical to identify a subset of breast cancer patients who may respond to immunotherapy. TMB high and PD-L1 positivity do not significantly co-occur and the majority of TMB high cases were PD-L1 negative. Nevertheless, this group of patients may still benefit with ICPIs. Further studies are needed to evaluate this subset of patients.

Citation Format: Ethan Sokol, Lee Albacker, Aixa Soyano, Ricardo Parrondo, Brenda Ernst, Emmanuel Gabriel, Garrett Frampton, Jeffrey Ross, Siraj Ali, Jon Chung, Saranya Chumsri. Incidence of high tumor mutation burden (TMB) and PD-L1 positivity in breast cancers and potential response to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICPIs) [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2019; 2019 Mar 29-Apr 3; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 4894.