HER2+ Breast Cancer

Anti-HER2 DC1 vaccination was demonstrated to be a safe and immunogenic treatment to induce tumor-specific T-cell responses in patients with HER2-positive breast cancer.

Kevin Kalinsky, MD, assistant professor of Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center, discusses a phase I study of ruxolitinib (Jakafi) in combination with trastuzumab (Herceptin) in metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer.

Alberto J. Montero, MD, Department of Hematology and Oncology at Cleveland Clinic, discusses the PERTAIN study in postmenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive, HER2-positive, locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer. The study looks at the impact of adding pertuzumab (Perjeta) to trastuzumab (Herceptin) in aromatase inhibitor (AI) therapy.

Nab-paclitaxel provides more benefits than paclitaxel for certain subsets of patients with breast cancer.

A prophylactic treatment of loperamide plus budesonide reduced the rate of grade 3 diarrhea associated with neratinib.

An investigation of the tyrosine kinase inhibitor lapatinib plus whole-brain radiotherapy has entered into a phase II trial in the treatment of patients with brain metastases from HER2-positive breast cancer.

The phase II HERMIONE trial was halted after the antibody-drug conjugate MM-302 combined with trastuzumab failed to improve progression-free survival versus chemotherapy plus trastuzumab in patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer who had previously received trastuzumab, pertuzumab, and ado-trastuzumab emtansine.

Aleix Prat, MD, PhD, head of the Department of Medical Oncology, the August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute, discusses the results of the open-label PAMELA trial, in which the HER2-enriched subtype predicted pathologic complete response to targeted treatment in patients with HER2-positive, hormone receptor-positive breast cancer.

Mothaffar F. Rimawi, MD, associate professor and medical director at the Lester and Sue Smith Breast Center at the Dan L. Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center at Baylor College of Medicine, discusses the findings of the NSABP B-52 trial, which explored the addition of neoadjuvant estrogen deprivation therapy to docetaxel and carboplatin plus the HER2 inhibitors trastuzumab (Herceptin) and pertuzumab (Perjeta) as treatment for patients with HER2-positive breast cancer.

Ricardo H. Alvarez, MD, MSc, director of Cancer Research, breast medical oncologist, Southeastern Regional Medical Center, Cancer Treatment Centers of America, discusses updated findings regarding the mechanism of action with eribulin mesylate (Halaven) and how it impacts patients with HER2-negative breast cancer.

Prophylactic treatment with the combination of loperamide and budesonide reduced the rate of grade ≥3 diarrhea associated with neratinib to 15% compared with 39.9% observed in the ExteNET trial.

A biomarker analysis of participants in a phase II breast cancer trial demonstrated potential for identifying tumor markers to predict susceptibility to specific therapies.

The HER2-enriched subtype of HER2-positive breast cancer is a strong predictor of sensitivity to dual HER2 blockade without the use of chemotherapy.

The addition of an aromatase inhibitor (AI) to pertuzumab and trastuzumab improved progression-free survival by 3.09 months, when compared with trastuzumab plus an AI.

Higher levels of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes were associated with improvements in overall survival for patients with advanced HER2-positive breast cancer treated with docetaxel, trastuzumab, and pertuzumab in the phase III CLEOPATRA trial.

Lisa Carey, MD, associate director, Clinical Research, UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, Richardson and Marilyn Jacobs Preyer Distinguished Professorship for Breast Cancer Research, UNC-Chapel Hill, discusses the ongoing progress with agents in development for the potential treatment of patients with HER2-positive breast cancer.

There are a wide variety of novel agents currently being investigated in the neoadjuvant setting for patients with HER2-positive breast cancer.

Debu Tripathy, MD, chair of Breast Medical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses the potential role of immunotherapy in the treatment of patients with HER2-positive breast cancer.

Patrick Borgen, MD, chair, Department of Surgery, director, Breast Center, Maimonides Medical Center, discusses the successful progress seen in the treatment landscape of HER2-positive breast cancer.

Immunotherapy and chemotherapy are options physicians should not dismiss for patients with HER2-positive breast cancer, according to Lisa Carey, MD, even with the available targeted agents trastuzumab, pertuzumab, lapatinib, and ado-trastuzumab emtansine.

Debu Tripathy, MD, chair of Breast Medical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses agents that are available and in development in the neoadjuvant setting as treatments for patients with HER2-positive breast cancer.

Dual HER2-directed therapy has demonstrated promising efficacy as a treatment approach for patients with breast cancer. Still, there remains a need for further research pertaining to therapies for HER2-positive patients who do do not meet the current criteria for this neoadjuvant regimen.

Carey Anders, MD, assistant professor for the Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology and Oncology, at UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC Linebarger Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses systemic agents available and in development for patients with breast cancer who also have brain metastases.

Lajos Pusztai, MD, DPhil, discusses findings that suggest it is unlikely that any single gene can predict response to targeted therapy for patients with HER2-positive breast cancer.

Kimberly L. Blackwell, MD, medical oncologist, Duke Cancer Institute, discusses the lasting impact that the CLEOPATRA and MARIANNE studies have had on the treatment landscape in HER2-positive breast cancer.