title: Target therapy in HER2-overexpressing breast cancer patients.
abstract: The development of new therapeutic strategies, such as monoclonal antibodies directed against human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER2), has offered new hopes for women with early breast cancer whose tumors overexpress HER2. We retrospectively analyzed the population-based data of Breast Cancer Registry of Palermo in 2004-2006, and selected 1401 invasive breast cancer cases, nonmetastatic at diagnosis, having HER2/neu oncogene expression determined. We have correlated this information to age, tumor stage at diagnosis (TNM), nodal involvement, and receptor status (ER and PgR). Survival analysis was conducted dividing the patients in two different groups according to date of diagnosis: one group diagnosed in 2004 and a second group in 2005-2006. In the 460 cases of 2004, nodal involvement, receptor status, age at diagnosis and TNM maintained a strong predictive value (p < 0.0001). In this group of patients, overall survival was significantly different according to the HER2 expression levels (p = 0.001). In the second group of patients (941 incident cases in 2005-2006) there was a statistically significant survival difference comparing patients with high levels of HER2 expression treated with trastuzumab versus those untreated (p = 0.006). Our data show that elevated levels of HER2 are a negative prognostic factor. In addition, patients overexpressing HER2 show a significant increase of overall survival when treated with trastuzumab.
authors.affiliation: Palermo Province Cancer Registry, Department of Science for the Promotion of Health G.D. Alessandro, University of Palermo, Italy. amodiorosalba@libero.it
authors.forename: Rosalba
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Amodio
authors.forename: Maurizio
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zarcone
authors.forename: Rosanna
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Cusimano
authors.forename: Ildegarda
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Campisi
authors.forename: Cecilia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Dolcemascolo
authors.forename: Adele
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Traina
authors.forename: Biagio
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Agostara
authors.forename: Nino
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Romano
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000911:Antibodies, Monoclonal / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D061067:Antibodies, Monoclonal, Humanized; D000970:Antineoplastic Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000401:mortality; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D053208:Kaplan-Meier Estimate; D008875:Middle Aged; D058990:Molecular Targeted Therapy; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011379:Prognosis; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D000068878:Trastuzumab
chemical_list: D000911:Antibodies, Monoclonal; D061067:Antibodies, Monoclonal, Humanized; D000970:Antineoplastic Agents; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases; D000068878:Trastuzumab; C508053:ERBB2 protein, human