Triple-negative breast cancer vaccine shows promise in early clinical trial

When Chase Johnson was 31, her dog began acting strange.

When Chase Johnson was 31, her dog began acting strange. He was anxious, wouldn’t leave her side and, one day, pushed his nose into the side of her breast. Johnson felt a hard lump.

“I wasn’t someone who was good at doing self-exams, I don’t think I would have found it otherwise,” Johnson, now 36, of Cary, North Carolina, said. “I had no family history of breast cancer.”

Johnson was diagnosed in February 2021 with triple-negative breast cancer, an aggressive type of the disease that tends to grow quickly and spread to other parts of the body.

Breast cancer treatment is determined in part by whether certain proteins are present on the tumor cells, including estrogen receptors and progesterone receptors, as well as a protein called HER2. Treatments can target these three proteins. Breast cancers with neither receptor and which produce little to no HER2 are deemed triple-negative, making them more difficult to treat.

Johnson underwent four months of intravenous chemotherapy and surgery to remove her tumor and lymph nodes. After that, she had another six months of oral chemo and 24 rounds of radiation.