Dimitroff, Katrina

504 Background: Axillary surgery in breast cancer is used for staging and therapeutic purposes, but axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) confers high risk of complications including lymphedema. Accordingly, trials have focused on right-sizing axillary surgery, with options ranging from complete omission of surgery, sentinel lymph node (SLN) surgery, targeted axillary dissection (TAD), or ALND. Identifying a biomarker to reliably predict nodal burden would facilitate accurate selection of surgical management. We evaluated whether the presence or absence of ctDNA in the blood pre and post NAC is associated with residual nodal burden. Methods: I-SPY2 is a prospective, multicenter NAC trial for patients with clinical stage II-III high-risk breast cancer. Patients are randomized to novel NAC agents, with pathologic complete response being the primary endpoint. As part of the trial, serial ctDNA is assessed with a highly sensitive tumor-informed assay using up to 16 patient-specific tumor mutations (Signatera) at baseline, 3 weeks, 12 weeks, and post-NAC. We determined whether ctDNA positivity or negativity post-NAC, and the change in ctDNA status baseline/post-NAC (-/-, -/+, +/+, +/-) are associated with ypN category (N0, N1, N2). Results: ctDNA status was available post-NAC in 495 patients and change in ctDNA status from baseline was available in 493. At baseline, ctDNA was detected in 160/220 (72.3%) cN0 patients and 227/273 (83.2%) cN+ patients (p=0.006). Post-NAC, ctDNA was detected in 11/220 (5%) cN0 patients and 34/273 (12.5%) cN+ patients (p=0.004). While baseline ctDNA status was not associated with ypN category, there was a significant association between post-NAC ctDNA status and ypN category. For ctDNA + patients post-NAC, 33.3% were ypN0, 31.1% were ypN1, and 35.6% were ypN2 at surgery; in contrast, for ctDNA - patients post-NAC, 67.1% were ypN0, 23.1% were ypN1, and 9.8% were ypN2 (p<0.0001). Dynamic ctDNA changes were also associated with ypN category, with significantly more ypN0 patients among ctDNA -/- or ctDNA +/- cases, and more ypN2 patients in those who did not clear ctDNA (+/+) (p=0.0001, Table). Conclusions: To our knowledge this is the first study to demonstrate a significant relationship between ctDNA and ypN category, which has important surgical implications. CtDNA negativity was associated with low likelihood of ypN2 disease, making these patients excellent candidates for SLN surgery or TAD. Ongoing analyses will incorporate receptor subtype and timing of clearance of ctDNA. CtDNA in breast cancer may help tailor surgical management of the axilla, potentially reducing patient morbidity without compromising prognostic information. ctDNA baseline/post-NAC ypN0 (n=317) ypN1 (n=116) ypN2 (n=60) ctDNA -/- (n=105) 72.4% 19.1% 8.6% ctDNA -/+ (n=1) 0.0% 100.0% 0.0% ctDNA +/+ (n=44) 34.1% 29.6% 36.4% ctDNA +/- (n=343) 65.9% 23.9% 10.2%

594 Background: Recent analyses in HER2+ and triple negative (TN) breast cancer (BC) treated with neoadjuvant systemic therapy (NAST) suggest that extent of disease at presentation (tumor [T] size and nodal [N] involvement) influences outcomes independently of response to NAST, even in the context of pathologic complete response (pCR). Given this, we evaluated the association of clinical T and N status prior to NAST with long-term outcomes in I-SPY2. Methods: We identified patients (pts) with TN and HER2+ BC who received NAST on the I-SPY2 trial with available clinical T size and N status prior to NAST, pathologic response after NAST, and follow up for recurrence and survival. We conducted univariable and multivariable (MV) Cox proportional models for Event Free (EFS), Distant Recurrence Free (DRFS), and Overall Survival (OS) in TN and HER2+ BC according to response after NAST, adjusting for residual cancer burden (RCB) category. Results: Of 1,170 pts with TN or HER2+ BC, 1,013 were eligible (TN: 623 and HER2+: 390), after 157 pts were excluded due to missing critical variables. Median follow up was 4.4 years (range 0.3-10.2). Median age was 48 for TN and 49 for HER2+ BC. Following NAST, pCR was achieved in 277 (45%) pts with TN and 197 (51%) pts with HER2+ BC. Among pts with pCR, separate MV analyses for TN and HER2+ BC showed no independent association between clinical T and N category with EFS, DRFS or OS (p values all > 0.05). However, among pts with residual disease, clinical T category (but not clinical N status) prior to NAST retained independent prognostic information in both TN and HER2+ BC in a MV model adjusting for age, RCB class, and hormone receptor status (for HER2+ BC). Compared to cT1-2, cT3-4 stage at diagnosis was associated with worse EFS, DRFS, and OS in TNBC, and with worse EFS, DRFS (but not OS) in HER2+ BC (Table). Additionally, hormone receptor status was independently associated with outcomes in HER2+ BC with residual disease (data not shown). The 5y EFS for cT1-2 vs cT3-4 according to RCB class in TNBC were: RCB0: 94% vs 95%, RCB1: 90% vs 65%, RCB2: 74% vs 44% and RCB3: 45% vs 20%. The 5y EFS for cT1-2 vs cT3-4 according to RCB class in HER2+ were: RCB0: 95% vs 88%, RCB1: 89% vs 84%, RCB2: 85% vs 64% and RCB3: 56% vs 50%. Conclusions: Tumor size (but not N involvement) prior to NAST was independently associated with outcomes in TN and HER2+ BC with residual disease, independently of RCB class. TN and HER2+ BC achieving pCR exhibited favorable outcomes regardless of extent of disease prior to NAST. These data are consistent with prior findings of the Neobioscore contributing only in the context of residual disease. Clinical trial information: NCT01042379 . [Table: see text]