Brian Leyland-Jones, MBBS, PhD, director of Edith Sanford Breast Cancer Research, discusses results from an 8 year follow-up of the phase III HERA trial that compared 2 years of adjuvant trastuzumab to the standard 1 year in 5102 women with HER2-postive early-stage breast cancer.

Leyland-Jones believes that the length of time needed to reach the expected 725 events needed to power a survival analysis provides great news for patients with breast cancer. Many believed these results would be available sooner than 8 years. In general, the results for the two arms of the trial were similar, showing no additional benefit for 2 years of trastuzumab. Prior to this trial, Leyland-Jones believed an added benefit would be observed.

The adjusted hazard ratio (HR) for disease free survival for two years versus one of adjuvant trastuzumab was 0.99. The HR for overall survival between the two arms was 1.05. The overlapping of these curves demonstrates no benefit for an additional year of trastuzumab, Leyland-Jones explains.

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