Titles and Affiliations
Associate Attending, Breast Medicine Service and Early Drug Development Service
Section Head, Endocrine Therapy Research Program
Clinical Director, Early Drug Development Service
Patricia and James Cayne Chair for Junior Faculty
Department of Medicine
Associate Professor of Medicine
Weill Cornell Medical College
Research Area
Seeking ways to improve the efficacy of immunotherapy by testing combination strategies in estrogen receptor-positive/HER2-negative breast cancer.
Impact
Immunotherapy seeks to leverage an individual’s immune system to work against cancer cells as it does against foreign substances like bacteria and viruses. While immunotherapy has become an established pillar of cancer treatment, some cancer cells learn to evade immune attack. Immunotherapy is effective in some cases of metastatic breast cancer (MBC), but not all. In fact, very few patients with estrogen receptor (ER)-positive/HER2-negative MBC have benefited from single-agent immunotherapy. However, they may benefit from immunotherapy in combination with other drugs. Dr. Jhaveri is conducting a clinical trial to test the combination of lenvatinib (Lenvima®, a receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor) and fulvestrant (Faslodex®, a selective ER degrader) prior to immunotherapy with pembrolizumab (Keytruda®, and immune checkpoint inhibitor). The results of her studies may provide a rationale for using this novel triplet regimen to boost the efficacy of immunotherapy in ER-postive/HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer.
What’s Next
In 2024, Dr. Jhaveri and her team initiated a phase 1b/2 clinical trial to test the lenvatinib, fulvestrant, and pembrolizumab combination in patients with ER-positive/HER2-negative MBC (NCT06110793). In the coming year, the team will use blood and tumor biopsy samples collected from trial participants to perform a variety of tests using advanced technologies for molecular, immunologic, and genomic profiling. By analyzing changes in the immune system through these tests, they hope to gain a better understanding of how this treatment strategy works and whether it is beneficial for these patients. Specifically, they will examine the changes in immune cells within the tumor microenvironment to decipher their role in potentially dampening a patient’s immune response. Ultimately, this approach may inform patient selection and therapeutic strategies in future clinical trials and improve patient outcomes. Perhaps this study will position immunotherapy as a new standard of care for patients with ER-positive/HER2-negative MBC who currently do not have it as a treatment option.
Biography
Komal Jhaveri, MD is an Associate Attending Physician, serves as the Section Head of the Endocrine Therapy Research Program within the Breast Medicine Service, and is the Clinical Director for the Early Drug Development Service at MSK. She is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York. She earned her medical degree followed by training in nuclear medicine from the University of Mumbai. She later completed an Internal Medicine residency at Icahn School of Medicine, Mount Sinai and a Medical Oncology/Hematology fellowship at MSK, both in New York.
Prior to these appointments, she served as an Assistant Professor in the department of medicine at New York University and as an Attending Physician at both Langone Medical Center and Bellevue Hospital.
Dr. Jhaveri’s research is focused on the development of improved therapies for patients with breast cancer, specifically conducting novel clinical trials integrated with translational biomarker work through biospecimen (cfDNA and tumor) or imaging analyses. She has led the development of PI3K/Akt inhibitors, FGFR inhibitors, ERBB2 inhibitors, oral SERDs, antibody-drug conjugates, among others.
Dr. Jhaveri is a recent recipient of the Patricia and James Cayne Chair for Junior Faculty at MSK. She serves as a member of the ASCO/TAPUR Molecular Tumor Board and is currently a member of the Developmental Therapeutics Track. She is the Co-Chair for the Endocrine Resistance working group within the Translational Breast Cancer Research Consortium. Her work has been presented at annual scientific meetings of ASCO, AACR, ESMO, SABCS and has been published widely in many reputable journals.
