Variable responses.

They could be due to the β variable regions on T-cell receptors. As a reminder, the 2012 NeoALTTO trial demonstrated that the combo of neoadjuvant trastuzumab + lapitinib improved rates of pathologic complete response (pCR) rates over either agent alone among women with HER2(+) breast cancer. A secondary analysis now reveals that the presence of four T-cell receptor β variable region genes highly predict a higher rate of pCR with combo therapy independent of immune signature expression, making for a more sophisticated biomarker than TILs alone. | Powles, JAMA Oncol 2018