Dr. Leisha Emens is professor of medicine in hematology/oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Hillman Cancer Center. She is also co-leader of the Hillman Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy Program and director of translational immunotherapy for the Women’s Cancer Research Center. She is internationally recognized for her research on using immunotherapy to treat breast cancer.
At the European Society for Medical Oncology Virtual Congress 2020, Dr. Emens presented final overall survival results from the IMpassion130 study, showing that the combination of Tecentriq, which has the chemical name atezolizumab, and Abraxane, which has the chemical name nab-paclitaxel, improved overall survival by 7.5 months compared to Abraxane alone for people diagnosed with metastatic PD-L1-positive, triple-negative breast cancer. But another trial — the IMpassion131 study — found that combining Tecentriq with Taxol, a different form of paclitaxel, was no better than Taxol alone in treating the same type of breast cancer — metastatic triple-negative disease.
Listen to the podcast to hear Dr. Emens explain:

the differences in the designs of the two studies

how Abraxane is different from Taxol

possible reasons for the difference in results

what this means for patients