Breast cancer research and treatment
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Breast Cancer Res. Treat. · May 2008
Review Meta AnalysisCardiotoxicity and incidence of brain metastases after adjuvant trastuzumab for early breast cancer: the dark side of the moon? A meta-analysis of the randomized trials.
In five randomized clinical trials (RCTs), adjuvant trastuzumab (T) for early stage breast cancer with human epidermal growth-factor receptor-2 over-expression/gene-amplification has shown to decrease the risk of both recurrence and death. The issue regarding the long-term safety profile of such drug is still open; in particular, questions remain about long-term cardiotoxicity, and specific patterns of relapse such as brain metastases (BM). In order to quantify the magnitude of these two risks, and then balance those with the survival outcome, a literature-based meta-analysis was performed. ⋯ The overall outcome results show that trastuzumab is one of the most important discoveries in oncology. Nevertheless, the biological activity of trastuzumab needs to be investigated more extensively to explore both long-term safety and specific relapse patterns.
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Breast Cancer Res. Treat. · May 2008
Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter StudyHER2 status in hormone receptor positive premenopausal primary breast cancer adds prognostic, but not tamoxifen treatment predictive, information.
Overexpression of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) or amplification of its gene is a prognostic factor in primary breast cancer and a predictor for tamoxifen treatment efficacy in oestrogen receptor (ER) positive disease. In the present study we explored a defined cohort of breast cancer patients included in a randomised trial in order to assess prognostic and tamoxifen treatment information yielded by HER2 status. ⋯ HER2+ and ER+ breast cancer constituted a subgroup of tumours with poor prognosis in premenopausal breast cancer, whereas no treatment interaction was found between HER2 status and tamoxifen in ER+ tumours. The poor prognosis in HER2+ and ER+ patients may interfere with the interpretation of HER2 data in non-randomised trials of adjuvant tamoxifen.
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Breast Cancer Res. Treat. · May 2008
Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and the estrogen receptor modulator amplified in breast cancer (AIB1) for predicting clinical outcome after adjuvant tamoxifen in breast cancer.
The epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and the estrogen receptor (ER) modulator Amplified In Breast cancer-1 (AIB1) have been reported to be of importance for the prognosis of breast cancer patients. We have analyzed AIB1 and EGFR by immunohistochemistry in primary breast cancers (n = 297) arranged in a tissue microarray in order to predict outcome after adjuvant endocrine therapy with tamoxifen for two years. ⋯ In univariate analysis, high EGFR was associated with shorter DDFS (hazard ratio 2.1; P = 0.017), and reached borderline significance in a multivariate analysis, adjusting for ER, menopausal and lymph node status, tumor size, and HER2 (P = 0.057). In conclusion, both AIB1 and EGFR were associated to DDFS for breast cancer patients treated with two years of adjuvant tamoxifen; AIB1 with the development of early distant recurrences, indicating association between high AIB1 and resistance to tamoxifen during treatment, and EGFR with distant recurrences up to a follow up of five years.