Genomic landscape and homologous recombination repair deficiency signature in stage I-III and de novo stage IV primary breast cancers.

PURPOSE

We compared genomic alterations and a homologous recombination deficiency (HRD) signature (HRDsig) in primary tumors from stage I-III to those in de novo stage IV breast cancers and from stage I-III cancers with early (<2 years after diagnosis) versus late (>2 years) recurrence.

METHODS

De-identified genomic and clinical data of primary breast cancers (stage I-III N = 910, stage IV N = 783) from the United States, the nationwide clinico-genomic database of Flatiron Health and Foundation Medicine were analyzed. Genomic results included the mutation status of 324 cancer-related genes and HRDsig, a DNA scar-based measure of HRD.

RESULTS

No significant differences were observed in the frequencies of genomic alterations across disease stages, or between stage I-III cancers with early versus late relapse. Overall, the most prevalent biomarkers were PIK3CA mutation and HRDsig positivity. HRDsig positivity was observed in 82% of germline or somatic g/sBRCA1/2 or germline PALB2 (gPALB2) mutated cancers, 13.1% in cancers with other HR-repair (HRR) gene alterations (ATM, BARD1, BRIP1, CDK12, CHEK1, CHEK2, FANCL, somatic PALB2 (sPALB2), RAD51B, RAD51C, RAD51D and RAD54L), and also in 16.5% of HRR wild-type cancers. HRDsig positivity was observed across receptor subtypes and was the highest in TNBC (30%), followed by ER+/HER2- cancers (17%), then HER2 + cancers (8.7%).

CONCLUSIONS

Early-stage (I-III) and de novo stage IV breast cancers shared a similar prevalence of targetable genomic alterations and overall genomic landscape. HRDsig identified approximately 16% of breast cancers without g/sBRCA/gPALB2 alteration that might potentially benefit from PARP inhibitors or platinum-based treatments and should be tested in future clinical studies.