Explaining Antibody-Drug Conjugates, a ‘GPS’ For Breast Cancer Treatment

The treatment landscape for breast cancer is shifting rapidly, driven by the rise of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), a class of treatments that are designed to deliver potent chemotherapy directly to cancer cells while sparing healthy tissue. At the 43rd Annual Miami Breast Cancer Conference, held in March 2026, the clinical utility and future of these agents took center stage as experts gathered to translate the latest data into bedside care.

As part of the CURE Educated Patient® Breast Cancer Summit, held during the conference, Dr. Kevin Kalinsky, director of the Glenn Family Breast Center at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, sat down to discuss the evolving role of ADCs. Kalinsky highlighted how these tools are expanding options for patients with HR-positive and triple-negative disease.

In an interview with CURE at the conference, he shared his thoughts on ADCs, which he described as like a GPS system for cancer treatments.

Transcript

For a newly diagnosed patient, how do you explain the benefit of using an ADC like Datroway (datopotamab deruxtecan, Dato-DXd) or Trodelvy (sacituzumab govitecan) immediately, rather than waiting until traditional chemotherapy has been tried?

I think we have seen, regardless of subtype, whether it's HER2-positive breast cancer, or whether it's hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative, HER2-low or triple-negative breast cancer, that the ADCs are able to deliver a dose of chemotherapy directly to the cancer cell in a way that, across the board, for the most part, has improvement in delaying the time to progression. Also, a lot of these studies show an improvement in overall survival.

And I think that we are seeing the development of new-antibody conjugates, as well as bispecific antibodies, that I think will continue to move the field forward. I explain ADCs to patients as you can think about this like a GPS which is just directly figuring out where the chemotherapy should go. And we have really seen that these ADCs have moved up earlier. And I also suspect we'll start seeing increasingly ADCs being utilized in the early-stage setting.

Transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

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