Dr. Hamilton on the Results of the KATHERINE Trial in HER2+ Breast Cancer
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Erika P. Hamilton, MD, discusses the superiority of ado-trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1; Kadcyla) in the phase III KATHERINE study.
Erika P. Hamilton, MD, director of the Breast Cancer and Gynecologic Research Program and principal investigator at Sarah Cannon Research Institute, discusses the superiority of ado-trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1; Kadcyla) in the phase III KATHERINE study.
Treatment is becoming clearer for patients with early HER2-positive disease, says Hamilton. It is important to treat patients with early HER2-positive breast cancer with neoadjuvant chemotherapy to reduce disease burden. Although pertuzumab (Perjeta) and neratinib (Nerlynx) are also approved for use in the adjuvant setting, T-DM1 has been proven to be superior.
The KATHERINE study defined high-risk patients as those who did not have a pathologic complete response to treatment in the neoadjuvant setting. By doing that, researchers were able to pick out a more accurate high-risk population and show a benefit in invasive disease-free survival. It is very important to offer these patients neoadjuvant therapy as a way to classify their risk and decide what additional treatment they may need, concludes Hamilton.
