Approximately a quarter of women with HER2 positive breast cancer, who were treated with a combination of the targeted drugs lapatinib and trastuzumab before surgery and chemotherapy, saw their tumours shrink significantly or even disappear, according to results from a clinical trial.
Professor Nigel Bundred told the 10th European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC-10) Thursday: “This has ground-breaking potential because it allows us to identify a group of patients who, within 11 days, have had their tumours disappear with anti-HER2 therapy alone and who potentially may not require subsequent chemotherapy. This offers the opportunity to tailor treatment for each individual woman.”
Prof Bundred, who is Professor of Surgical Oncology at The University of Manchester and the University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust (UK), was presenting results from the UK EPHOS-B multi-centre, clinical trial, in which 257 women with newly-diagnosed, operable, HER2 positive disease were recruited between November 2010 and September 2015.
The trial had two parts; in part one, 130 women were randomised to receive no pre-operative treatment (the control group), or trastuzumab (Herceptin ®) only, or lapatinib (Tyverb ®) only, for 11 days after diagnosis and before surgery. However, as evidence emerged from other trials of the efficacy of the combination of lapatinib and trastuzumab to treat HER2 positive breast cancer in other settings, the second part of the trial was amended so that, from August 2013, the next 127 women were randomised to the control group, or to receive trastuzumab only, or the combination treatment. For both parts of the trial, the women continued to receive standard of care treatment after surgery.
Text from Science Daily. Video from Inform. SouthFloridaReporter.com, Mar. 11, 2016
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