ArticleClinical cancer research : an official journal of the American Association for Cancer Research2025
Prognosis and Biological Characteristics of ER-Low Metastatic Breast Cancer: Results from a Multicenter Cohort and the TONIC Trial.
Article in Clinical cancer research : an official journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Sensitivity to Endocrine Therapy Index Predicts Benefit from Weekly Adjuvant Paclitaxel for Hormone Receptor-Positive Breast Cancer in the GEICAM/9906 Trial.Clinical cancer research : an official journal of the American Association for Cancer Research · 2026Trial
- Evolution of ER-cut-off definition in clinical trials for triple negative breast cancer: trends and patterns over 15 years.Breast (Edinburgh, Scotland) · 2026Review
- Distribution and molecular drivers of the 21-gene recurrence score in early breast cancer with low, intermediate, and high estrogen receptor expression.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Article
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21 authors.
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Abstract
purposeThe purpose of this study was to assess prognosis of estrogen receptor (ER)-low expression and its dynamics in HER2- metastatic breast cancer and to compare sensitivity to nivolumab between ER-low and triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). EXPERIMENTAL
designTwo cohorts were analyzed: a multicenter cohort of 982 patients with HER2- metastatic breast cancer and one prospective cohort of 110 patients with ER <10%/HER2- metastatic breast cancer enrolled in the TONIC trial (testing nivolumab). Endpoints were overall survival (OS) and post-relapse survival (PRS) in the retrospective cohort and progression-free survival, OS, and clinical benefit rate in the TONIC trial.
resultsA total of 7.3% of retrospective cases had ER-low breast cancer, 15 of 110 of the TONIC trial. In the retrospective cohort, patients with ER-low breast cancer had significantly poorer OS (P < 0.001) and numerically shorter PRS (P = 0.230) compared with ER+/HER2- breast cancer and numerically longer OS (P = 0.098) and significantly longer PRS (P = 0.017) compared with TNBC. In the TONIC trial, patients with ER-low breast cancer, compared with TNBC, showed similar response to nivolumab (clinical benefit rate: 20.0% vs. 22.1%; P = 1), progression-free survival (median, 1.7 vs. 2.0 months; P = 0.5), and OS (median, 5.3 vs. 8.6 months; P = 0.3). Among patients with primary ER+/HER2- breast cancer (n = 565), the conversion toward ER-low breast cancer or TNBC at metastasis conferred independent negative prognostic impact both for OS (P = 0.002 and P = 0.001, respectively) and PRS (P = 0.018 and P = 0.001, respectively).
conclusionsWe provided evidence of the prognostic role of ER-low expression and its dynamics in patients with HER2- metastatic breast cancer. We offered insights into sensitivity to anti-PD1 in metastatic breast cancer, showing that patients with ER-low breast cancer have comparable likelihood of responding to nivolumab as those with TNBC.
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