Faisability pilot study to explore inflammation with [18F]-DPA-714 PET/CT versus immunochemistry in triple negative breast cancer: Design protocol

Abstract

The Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC), despite a good initial response to conventional chemotherapy,
relapses frequently and has a poor prognosis after the onset of metastases. It is therefore interesting to
develop new relevant targets to establish a prognosis but also potentially to propose a targeted therapy
for a theranostic approach. A high density of M2-type macrophages presence in the primary TNBC
tumor predicted an unfavorable prognosis. The presence of activated M2-type macrophages can be
evaluated by measuring the expression of a translocating protein (TSPO) with [18F]-DPA-714 PETCT.
This proof-of-concept study with [18F]-DPA-714 PET-CT has a design to establish the correlation
between immunohistochemistry tumor characterization and in vivo imaging. If a valid correlation
will be established, [18F]-DPA-714 PET-CT could be a based image prognosis biomarker, apart from
pathological data, which can be fragmented as biopsy or modified by previous treatments. It would
allow adapting early the type/dose-intensity of treatment and considering developments of treatments
targeting M2-type macrophages.