Trastuzumab and chemotherapy improved survival in HER2-postive breast and brain cancer patients

Based on these study results, lead researcher Adam Brufsky, M.D., Ph.D., said, “We clearly now know that these women should get trastuzumab and potentially chemotherapy, even if cancer spreads to the brain.”

“Women with HER2-positive breast cancer have a reasonable chance of living a long time with their disease, and they should be given aggressive therapy where appropriate,” added Brufsky, professor of medicine and associate director of clinical investigation at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute.

Ten to 16 percent of women with advanced breast cancer develop central nervous system metastases, the researchers wrote in their study, published in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Brufsky and colleagues used data from the registHER study to evaluate the incidence, potential risk factors and outcomes for patients with HER2-positive breast cancer. They evaluated how patients with HER2-positive breast cancer develop brain metastases, and followed them to examine what happens thereafter.

Of the 1,023 women newly diagnosed with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer, 377 had central nervous system metastases.

Patients with central nervous system metastases were younger, and more likely to have hormone receptor–negative disease and higher disease burden compared with those whose cancer did not spread to the brain. In addition, for those patients without central nervous system metastases at initial diagnosis, cancer progressed to the brain about 13 months after diagnosis.

For those diagnosed with central nervous system metastases, treatment with trastuzumab, chemotherapy or surgery was each associated with a significant improvement in overall survival: trastuzumab 17.5 months vs. no trastuzumab 3.8 months; chemotherapy 16.4 months vs. no chemotherapy 3.7 months; and surgery 20.3 months vs. no surgery 11.3 months.

“It is surprising that chemotherapy/trastuzumab adds to these women's survival,” Brufsky said. “We thought that the brain metastases would be dominant in this regard no matter what therapy.”

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The mission of the American Association for Cancer Research is to prevent and cure cancer. Founded in 1907, the AACR is the world's oldest and largest professional organization dedicated to advancing cancer research. The membership includes 33,000 basic, translational and clinical researchers; health care professionals; and cancer survivors and advocates in the United States and more than 90 other countries. The AACR marshals the full spectrum of expertise from the cancer community to accelerate progress in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer through high-quality scientific and educational programs. It funds innovative, meritorious research grants, research fellowships and career development awards. The AACR Annual Meeting attracts more than 18,000 participants who share the latest discoveries and developments in the field. Special conferences throughout the year present novel data across a wide variety of topics in cancer research, treatment and patient care. Including Cancer Discovery, the AACR publishes seven major peer-reviewed journals: Cancer Research; Clinical Cancer Research; Molecular Cancer Therapeutics; Molecular Cancer Research; Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention; and Cancer Prevention Research. AACR journals represented 20 percent of the market share of total citations in 2009. The AACR also publishes CR, a magazine for cancer survivors and their families, patient advocates, physicians and scientists.