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Leads Dana-Farber's breast oncology division and many of the trials that moved ADCs and de-escalated therapy into breast cancer care.
Sara M. Tolaney is Chief of the Division of Breast Oncology and Associate Director of the Susan F. Smith Center for Women's Cancers at Dana-Farber Brigham Cancer Center. She is known for leading the APT trial that established adjuvant paclitaxel and trastuzumab for small HER2-positive tumours, and for many of the trials that moved antibody-drug conjugates and de-escalated therapy into breast cancer care, as a principal investigator across the DESTINY, TROPION and HER2CLIMB programmes and trials of sacituzumab govitecan in triple-negative disease. Her selected papers report adjuvant paclitaxel and trastuzumab for node-negative HER2-positive breast cancer, and TROPION-Breast01 comparing datopotamab deruxtecan with chemotherapy in hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer.
| Title | Journal | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Adjuvant paclitaxel and trastuzumab for node-negative, HER2-positive breast cancer | New England Journal of Medicine | 2015 |
| Datopotamab deruxtecan versus chemotherapy in previously treated inoperable/metastatic hormone receptor-positive HER2-negative breast cancer (TROPION-Breast01) | Journal of Clinical Oncology | 2025 |
| ASCENT: sacituzumab govitecan doubles survival in heavily pretreated metastatic triple-negative breast cancer | New England Journal of Medicine | 2021 |
| monarchE: two years of abemaciclib after surgery in high-risk, hormone-receptor-positive early breast cancer | Journal of Clinical Oncology | 2020 |
Sacituzumab govitecan is a standard second-line or later treatment for metastatic triple-negative breast cancer, roughly doubling survival compared with the chemotherapies it was tested against. Patients should expect neutropenia and diarrhoea, which are manageable with growth factor support and loperamide. Trials are now testing it earlier, in first-line combinations with pembrolizumab and after surgery for residual disease.
TROP2 IHC does not gate sacituzumab govitecan: the label requires no test, and the corpus records TROP2 as an expression readout without a threshold.
Women with hormone-receptor-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer that has spread to lymph nodes and has other high-risk features can now be offered two years of abemaciclib alongside their hormone therapy, with a durable reduction in relapse. It does not apply to node-negative or low-risk disease, and the diarrhoea and cost are real trade-offs to discuss.
TMB-high is uncommon but not negligible in TNBC, rises at relapse, and the tumour-agnostic pembrolizumab indication makes it worth measuring on a metastatic biopsy.
PTEN loss, the most common PI3K-pathway lesion in TNBC, may mark primary immunotherapy resistance, and TMB may add to PD-L1 in choosing who gets checkpoint blockade.
It fixes the AR-positive share of ER-negative disease at about one in eight and shows anti-androgens give modest, non-toxic benefit, the rationale for enzalutamide and later CDK4/6 and PI3K combinations in LAR tumours.
Shares Biomarker analyses in the phase III ASCENT study of sacituzumab govitecan versus chemotherapy in patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer, TROPION-Breast01, ASCENT: sacituzumab govitecan doubles survival in heavily pretreated metastatic triple-negative breast cancer, TROP2.
Shares Prevalence and mutational determinants of high tumor mutation burden in breast cancer, Tumor mutational burden and PTEN alterations as molecular correlates of response to PD-1/L1 blockade in metastatic triple-negative breast cancer, Breast Cancer Research Foundation, Dana-Farber Brigham Cancer Center.
Shares Phase II trial of bicalutamide in patients with androgen receptor-positive, estrogen receptor-negative metastatic breast cancer, ASCENT: sacituzumab govitecan doubles survival in heavily pretreated metastatic triple-negative breast cancer, TROP2, Sacituzumab govitecan.
Shares monarchE: two years of abemaciclib after surgery in high-risk, hormone-receptor-positive early breast cancer, TROP2, Datopotamab deruxtecan, Trastuzumab deruxtecan.
Shares DESTINY-Breast09, monarchE: two years of abemaciclib after surgery in high-risk, hormone-receptor-positive early breast cancer, ASCENT: sacituzumab govitecan doubles survival in heavily pretreated metastatic triple-negative breast cancer, Trastuzumab deruxtecan.
Shares Biomarker analyses in the phase III ASCENT study of sacituzumab govitecan versus chemotherapy in patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer, TROP2, Datopotamab deruxtecan, Sacituzumab govitecan.
Shares ASCENT: sacituzumab govitecan doubles survival in heavily pretreated metastatic triple-negative breast cancer, Trastuzumab deruxtecan, HER2, HER2-positive breast cancer.
Shares ASCENT: sacituzumab govitecan doubles survival in heavily pretreated metastatic triple-negative breast cancer, TROP2, Datopotamab deruxtecan, Sacituzumab govitecan.