Joseph A. Sparano, MD

Identifying factors that contribute to the late recurrence of breast cancer and determining if circulating tumor DNA can be used to personalize treatment decisions for patients, prevent relapse, and improve survival.

Impact

Working under the auspices of the Coalition of Cancer Cooperative Groups and ECOG-ACRIN Breast Committee, BCRF investigator, Dr. Joseph Sparano is leading efforts to advance the clinical management of breast cancer by utilizing resources collected as part of ongoing clinical trials to identify biomarkers that can better inform treatment decisions. Blood and tissue samples from breast cancer patients who take part in clinical trials are a valuable resource for researchers. They reveal details about the nature of the disease and can also be used to discover biomarkers that help inform personalize treatments and reduce side effects. Dr. Sparano oversees ongoing data analysis of samples from the Late-Relapse Repository and ECOG-ACRIN trials to identify and validate markers from patient tissue and blood to improve personalized treatment approaches and outcomes for breast cancer patients.

Progress Thus Far

Ongoing work is focused on several areas, including tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), genomic assays, circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) and circulating methylation markers. In the last year, Dr. Sparano and collaborators sought to expand knowledge about tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) in breast cancer by examining their relationship to outcome and treatment response in two ECOG-ACRIN studies. Dr. Sparano also launched a new initiative—the Tumor Evolution and escApe to Metastasis (TEaM) project—in collaboration with BCRF Investigator Dr. Christina Curtis. This collaboration utilizes the biospecimen resources Dr. Sparano has established through ECOG-ACRIN to better understand tumor cells and tumor microenvironmental factors that contribute to breast cancer recurrence, especially late recurrence.

What’s next

In the next year Dr. Sparano and his team will continue evaluating how TILs can help personalize treatment and improve outcomes for breast cancer patients. Dr. Sparano and co-investigators will study TILs in three clinical trials to better understand racial differences in TNBC and identify opportunities to improve treatment outcomes for Black women with breast cancer.
In further efforts to determine why some breast cancers return years after treatment, Dr. Sparano and his team are harnessing primary tumor samples derived from TAILORx, RxPONDER and relapse tumor specimens from EA1241 (derived from TAILORx and RxPONDER) to evaluate tumor, microenvironmental, and host factors contributing to early (< 5 years) and late (>5 years) recurrence of ER-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer. These findings could help doctors predict recurrence risk and develop more personalized treatments.