Anti-HER2 combined for better pre-op breast cancer treatment

Combining trastuzumab and lapatinib in pre-op has been found to improve the outcome of patients with HER2-positive breast cancer.

The results, which were detailed by an international research team and published in The Lancet, found that combining the two drugs, which inhibit the growth factor HER2, have better results than treatment with a single agent.

It has been found that around 20 to 30 per cent of breast cancers are driven by over-expression of HER2, which are particularly aggressive tumours.

Trastuzumab and lapatinib have different mechanisms of action, with the latter generally being used in combination with chemotherapy for patients whose tumors have stopped responding to trastuzumab. Scientists have combined the drugs in an attempt to reduce the development of treatment-resistant disease.

There is a further companion study now being conducted to compare dual HER2 blockade to single-drug therapy in adjuvant (postoperative) treatment in 8,000 patients. A

ccording to José Baselga, MD, PhD, chief of Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer Center: "If that study's results confirm our current findings, the implications could be profound for the way we design clinical trials, suggesting that we could answer important questions with much smaller trials."

According to Cancer Research UK, breast cancer is now the most common form of cancer in the UK, with incidents growing by 50 per cent in the last 25 years.

Posted by Fiona Griffiths