title: Trastuzumab and Gemcitabine in Pretreated HER2 Overexpressing Metastatic Breast Cancer Patients: Retrospective Analysis of Our Series.
abstract: Trastuzumab-based regimes improved clinical outcome in women with overexpressing HER2 metastatic breast cancer, mainly due to the availability of different combination therapies, clinically active and well tolerated. In this study we retrospectively evaluated clinical activity and toxicity of trastuzuamb plus gemcitabine regimen in heavily pretreated HER2 positive metastatic breast cancer patients. Although the observed population was heavily pretreated, the evaluated regimen was notably effective in terms of response rate, time to progression and survival, with very mild toxicity. These data suggest that in over expressing HER2 metastatic breast cancer patients, sequential trastuzumab based chemotherapeutic regimens can achieve good response rate with prolonged TTP in responding patients, even after other target therapy such as lapatinib based combinations.
authors.affiliation: Division of Medical Oncology C, Centro di Riferimento Oncologico, 33081 Aviano, Italy.
authors.forename: Vincenzo
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Di Lauro
authors.forename: Elena
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Torrisi
authors.forename: Ettore
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Bidoli
authors.forename: Daniela
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Quitadamo
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cecco
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Veronesi