image: This is Dr. Eric Winer, Director of Breast Oncology, Susan F. Smith Center for Women's Cancers at Dana-Farber. view more
Credit: Sam Ogden, Dana-Farber
- Chemotherapy plus targeted drug for women with stage 1, HER2-positive breast tumors reduces chance of cancer recurrence for 3 years
- Success in identifying treatment regimens that target the biological features of a woman's cancer and the stage of the cancer
- Findings could establish a standard treatment for patients
BOSTON - In a phase 2 clinical trial, women with small (stage 1), HER2-positive breast tumors who received a combination of lower-intensity chemotherapy and a targeted drug following surgery were highly unlikely to have the cancer recur within three years of treatment, investigators at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and other institutions report in a paper published today by the New England Journal of Medicine.
The findings may help establish the therapy - which combines the chemotherapy agent paclitaxel and the targeted drug trastuzumab (Herceptin) - as the first standard treatment approach for this group of patients, the authors state.
Many previous studies excluded women with small (less than 2 cm in diameter) HER2-positive breast tumors that hadn't spread to nearby lymph nodes from clinical trials of trastuzumab, because it wasn't considered prudent to expose them to an investigational drug, given the relatively low risk that the disease would recur. Without a single, standard treatment for this group of patients, treatment approaches have varied widely. (Breast cancers are classified as HER2-positive if their cells have surplus human epidermal growth factor receptors on their surface, making them extra-sensitive to signals to grow and divide.)
"Women with small, HER-2 positive, node-negative [no sign of spread to adjacent lymph nodes] breast tumors have a low, but still significant, risk of recurrence of their disease," said the study's senior author, Eric Winer, MD, director of the Breast Oncology Program at the Susan F. Smith Center for Women's Cancers at Dana-Farber. "This study demonstrates that a combination of lower-intensity chemotherapy and trastuzumab - which is associated with fewer side effects than traditional chemotherapy regimens - is an appealing standard of care for this group of patients."
The study enrolled 406 patients with HER2-positive, node-negative breast tumors smaller than 3 cm. They were treated with the drug combination for 12 weeks, followed by nine months of Herceptin alone. (Traditional drug regimens for women with HER2-positive breast cancer involve chemotherapy with adriamycin and cytoxan followed by paclitaxel and trastuzumab.)
Three years after completing therapy, 98.7 percent of the participants were alive and free of invasive breast cancer. The side effects were generally milder than those associated with traditional chemotherapy regimens.
"We're committed to identifying treatment regimens that are geared not only to the specific biological features of a woman's cancer, but also to the stage of the cancer - the size of the tumor and how far it has advanced," said the study's lead author, Sara Tolaney, MD, MPH, of the Susan F. Smith Center for Women's Cancers at Dana-Farber "This study is a prime example of the value of that approach."
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Financial support for the research was provided by Genentech and Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
The co-authors of the study are William Barry, PhD, Beth Overmoyer, MD, Ann Partridge, MD, MPH, Hao Guo, MS, Ian Krop, MD, PhD, and Harold Burstein, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber; Chau Dang MD, and Clifford Hudis, MD, of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; Denise Yardley, MD, of the Sarah Cannon Cancer Center, Nashville, Tenn.; Beverly Moy, MD, MPH, of Massachusetts General Hospital; P. Kelly Marcom, MD, of Duke University; Kathy Albain, MD, of Loyola University; Hope Rugo, MD, of the University of California San Francisco; Matthew Ellis, MD, PhD, of Washington University; Iuliana Shapira, MD, of Hofstra North Shore Long Island Jewish School of Medicine; Antonio Wolff, MD, of Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center; and Lisa Carey, MD, of the University of North Carolina.
About Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is a principal teaching affiliate of the Harvard Medical School and is among the leading cancer research and care centers in the United States. It is a founding member of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, designated a Comprehensive Cancer Center by the National Cancer Institute. It provides adult cancer care with Brigham and Women's Hospital as Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center and pediatric care with Boston Children's Hospital as Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center. Dana-Farber is the top-ranked cancer center in New England, according to U.S. News & World Report, and one of the largest recipients among independent hospitals of National Cancer Institute and National Institutes of Health grant funding. Follow Dana-Farber on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/danafarbercancerinstitute and on Twitter: @danafarber
Journal
New England Journal of Medicine