This phase II trial studies how well a cancer vaccine called STEMVAC works in combination with chemotherapy in treating patients with PD-L1 negative, triple-negative breast cancer that has spread from where it first started (primary site) to other places in the body (metastatic). STEMVAC is designed to target proteins that are expressed on breast cancer stem cells, and it is believed to work by boosting the immune system to recognize and destroy the invader tumor cells that are causing the disease. Chemotherapy drugs work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells, by stopping them from dividing, or by stopping them from spreading. Giving STEMVAC in combination with chemotherapy may be an effective treatment for PD-L1 negative metastatic triple-negative breast cancer.
OUTLINE: Patients receive systemic standard of care chemotherapy as determined by their attending medical oncologist. Patients receive 3 priming doses of STEMVAC with sargramostim intradermally (ID) every 21-28 days (7-13 days after each chemotherapy administration or during the off week of weekly chemotherapy), 2 booster STEMVAC/sargramostim doses at 4 and 7 months after 3rd priming dose, and then every 6 months in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. Patients also undergo computed tomography (CT) or ultrasound-guided biopsy, for research purposes, on study, as well as CT or positron emission tomography (PET) scans and blood sample collection throughout the study. In addition, patients may also undergo CT or ultrasound-guided biopsy, for research purposes, during screening. After completion of study treatment, patients are followed up at 21 or 28 days and then every 6 months for 3 years.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
NA
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
20
Given ID
Given standard of care chemotherapy
Undergo CT scans
Undergo CT-guided biopsy
Given ID
Undergo ultrasound-guided biopsy
Undergo blood sample collection
Undergo PET scan
Fred Hutch/University of Washington Cancer Consortium
Seattle, Washington, United States
RECRUITINGIncidence of immunogenicity of CD105/Yb-1/SOX2/CDH3/MDM2-polyepitope plasmid deoxyribonucleic acid vaccine (STEMVAC): Incidence of patients who develop a positive immunogenic response after vaccination
The Th1 STEMVAC antigen specific immune response will be determined by IFN-gamma ELISPOT. Magnitude of Th1 response will be defined for each antigen in STEMVAC for each patient as the value of the corrected spots per well (CSPW) (CSPW= \[(mean of spots in the antigen stimulated wells) - (mean of antigens for the no-antigen negative control wells)\] for the same time point). Patients are considered to have preexisting immune response if the mean of spots in antigen wells is greater than the mean + 2 standard deviations of no-antigen wells at baseline. Patients are considered to have generated or enhanced antigen specific immunity post-vaccine if the maximal corrected IFN-gamma response post-vaccine is greater than the mean + 2 standard deviations of the baseline level (p \< 0.05). A patient will be considered an immunogenic responder if they develop an antigen-specific immune response to at least 1 of the 5 vaccine antigens.
Time frame: Baseline up to 7 months after STEMVAC priming dose #3
Incidence of adverse events
Will be determined by chemical and clinical parameters evaluated at various time points. Toxicity grading will be evaluated according to the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events version 6.0 and monitoring of adverse events will be done per Food and Drug Administration and NCI guidelines. Descriptive statistics will be provided on the key demographic and clinical variables, such as mean, standard deviation, and range for continuous variables, and percent and number for categorical variables, such as toxicity grades.
Time frame: Up to 21 or 28 days after completion of study treatment
6-month overall response rate
Will evaluate the clinical response to treatment following the first booster dose of STEMVAC using standard of care imaging and RECIST 1.1.
Time frame: At 6 months
Progression-free survival (PFS)
Will evaluate the real-world progression-free survival to first subsequent therapy, defined as the date of first subsequent therapy after STEMVAC immunization and chemotherapy to disease progression, initiation of hospice or death as extracted from clinical notes.
Time frame: From the start of treatment to the worsening of cancer or death whichever occurs first, assessed up to 3 years after completion of study treatment
Overall survival (OS)
Overall survival will be defined by patient survival or death from the start of treatment.
Time frame: Up to 3 years after completion of study treatment
Magnitude of immunogenicity of CD105/Yb-1/SOX2/CDH3/MDM2-polyepitope plasmid deoxyribonucleic acid vaccine (STEMVAC)
Defined as the sum of the interferon gamma enzyme-linked immunosorbent spot of all STEMVAC antigens on blood samples collected pre-vaccine as compared to 1-month post dose #3 of the STEMVAC vaccine and again after 2 booster doses of STEMVAC vaccine. The magnitude of immunity will be calculated as the sum of antigen-specific immune responses across the five vaccine antigens. The mean and maximum post-vaccine immune responses will be summarized and compared with pre-treatment levels. If substantial outliers are present or the data are non-normally distributed, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test will be used to assess differences between pre-treatment and post-vaccine priming samples.
Time frame: Baseline up to 7 months after STEMVAC priming dose #3
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