title: Neoadjuvant treatment of HER2 and hormone-receptor positive breast cancer - moving beyond pathological complete response.
abstract: Pathologic complete response (pCR) was noted to be prognostic in all but hormone receptor-positive (HR) breast cancer cases even when HER2 is overexpressed. Evocative data suggest that HER2-positive breast cancer patients are a heterogeneous population and a subset of HER2-positive and HR-positive tumors biologically behave more like HER2-negative. Identification and targeted monitoring of these patients is crucial to consolidate data aiming to optimize combination treatment with new agents, thereby avoiding overtreatment with chemotherapy. The questions surrounding HER2-positive and HR-positive breast cancer patients treatment as well as the potential direction towards development of surrogate markers alternative to pCR are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Fondazione IRCCS - Istituto Nazionale Tumori, Milano, Italy. Electronic address: serena.dicosimo@istitutotumori.mi.it.
authors.forename: Serena
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Di Cosimo
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Medicina Clinica e Chirurgia, Universita' di Napoli Federico II, Italy.
authors.forename: Grazia
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Arpino
authors.affiliation: U.O. Multidisciplinare di Patologia Mammaria/U.S. Terapia Molecolare e Farmacogenomica, AZ. Istituti Ospitalieri di Cremona, Italy.
authors.forename: Daniele
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Generali
mesh_terms: D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000378:metabolism; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D020360:Neoadjuvant Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases / Q000378:metabolism*; D011960:Receptors, Estrogen / Q000378:metabolism*; D011980:Receptors, Progesterone / Q000378:metabolism*; D016896:Treatment Outcome
chemical_list: D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases; D011960:Receptors, Estrogen; D011980:Receptors, Progesterone
keywords: Breast cancer; HER2; Hormone receptor; Neoadjuvant therapy; Targeted therapy; Trastuzumab