Heterozygote Germline Mutations in Homologous Recombination Core Genes Can Predict for Pathologic Complete Response in Early Triple Negative Breast Cancer

Background: BSMO 2014-01 is a published prospective phase 2 study investigating neoadjuvant weekly paclitaxel and carboplatin, followed by epirubicin and cyclophosphamide in 63 patients with triple-negative breast cancer. Pathological complete response (pCR) was 54%. A secondary endpoint was to correlate pCR rate to the presence of germline pathogenic variants in DNA damage response (DDR) genes and in core genes involved in Homologous Recombination (HR).