Safety Study Of Chemotherapy Combined With Dendritic Cell Vaccine to Treat Breast Cancer

Recent studies have shown that human breast cancers can be immunogenic, and that enhancing the immune effector function already present may augment the cytotoxic effects of standard therapies. vaccination remains the most attractive strategy because of its expected inducement of both therapeutic T cell immunity (effector T cells) and protective T cell immunity (tumor-specific memory T cells that can control tumor relapse). Several clinical studies have now demonstrated that immunity against tumor antigens can be enhanced in cancer patients by vaccination with ex vivo-generated tumor antigen-loaded dendritic cells (DCs). This strategy capitalizes on the unique capacity of DCs to prime lymphocytes and to regulate and maintain immune responses. Our goals are to boost T cell immunity targeted against breast cancer utilizing a tumor antigen-loaded DC vaccine, to enhance chemotherapy effectiveness and decrease tumor metastagenicity, and to decrease the recurrence rates of LA TNBC and ER+/HER2- BC. Patients will be treated with a combination of antigen-loaded DC vaccinations along with standard preoperative chemotherapy, to improve immunogenicity and to increase the pCR rate achieved with standard therapy. The trial will consist of 2 patient cohorts: TNBC and ER+/HER2- BC.