Triple drug combination effective in HER2-positive breast cancer

07. 12. 2011 | Cancer Research UK


Italian researchers have shown that the effect of treating women before surgery with trastuzumab (Herceptin) and docetaxel for HER2-positive breast cancer is improved by adding another 'Herceptin-like' drug called pertuzumab. The results have just been published in The Lancet Oncology [1].

Triple drug combination effective in HER2-positive breast cancer

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Experts at the San Raffaele Cancer Centre in Milan found that adding pertuzumab to a woman's treatment improved the rate at which her cancer completely disappeared by more than half after just four cycles (12 weeks) of treatment, compared with the treatment with just trastuzumab and docetaxel.

The phase II study - published in the Lancet Oncology - involved 417 previously untreated women with an aggressive type of early HER-2 positive disease.

Read the whole article at Cancer Research UK

Reference

  1. Gianni, L., Pienkowski, T., et al. (2011). Efficacy and safety of neoadjuvant pertuzumab and trastuzumab in women with locally advanced, inflammatory, or early HER2-positive breast cancer (NeoSphere): a randomised multicentre, open-label, phase 2 trial Lancet Oncology DOI: 10.1016/S1470-2045(11)70336-9

Keywords: HER2-positive breast cancer, trastuzumab, docetaxel, pertuzumab, pathological complete response

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