Dr De Caluwe talks to ecancer at ESMO 2024 about data he presented from the three armed Neo-CheckRay phase II trial evaluating neoadjuvant chemotherapy with stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) alone, or with durvalumab, or with durvalumab and oleclumab for early-stage, high risk ER+/HER2- breast cancer.

His team speculated that combining SBRT with a PD-L1 inhibitor and an adenosine-targeting agent (oleclumab, anti-CD73) could potentiate anti-tumour immunity and response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in high-risk early-stage luminal breast cancer.

The study found that the addition of durvalumab +/- oleclumab numerically increases pathological complete response and residual cancer burden 0/1 rates compared to neoadjuvant chemotherapy combined with SBRT alone.