Advances in Immunotherapy for Breast Cancer: Up-to-date Strategies of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors and Therapeutic Vaccines.

Breast cancer remains one of the leading causes of cancer-related mortality among women worldwide. Although advances in early diagnosis and conventional therapies have significantly improved the prognosis in many cases, certain aggressive subtypes such as triple-negative breast cancer continue to pose major clinical challenges due to the absence of specific therapeutic targets. Therefore, we believe that exploring novel strategies for the development and application of immunotherapy may change the paradigm for this type of tumor. Immunotherapy aims to activate the patient's own immune system to recognize and eliminate tumor cells more effectively and selectively, improving immunological memory. Based on a structured review of scientific literature and therapeutic clinical trials published in the main scientific databases, including studies of different clinical phases and stages of the disease, from early-stage to metastatic breast cancer, we conclude that immune checkpoint inhibitors, especially when combined with chemotherapy and administered to patients with positive biomarkers, such as PD-L1 expression, provide significant clinical benefits. In addition, therapeutic vaccines continue to be studied as a promising approach to preventing relapses in high-risk patients when combined with other immunotherapy agents. This represents a major advance in the treatment of the most aggressive subtypes of breast cancer, positioning immunotherapy as one of the most promising treatments.