The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 275 No 7380 p736
17 December 2005

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Adding trastuzumab increases survival

Treatment with trastuzumab (Herceptin) at the same time as, or following, chemotherapy increased disease-free survival in a trial of 3,222 women with human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive early breast cancer.

Patients randomised to receive doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide followed by docetaxel plus trastuzumab showed a 51 per cent reduction in the risk of recurrence compared with the control group of women treated with chemotherapy without trastuzumab (95 per cent confidence interval 35–63 per cent; P<0.001). Those treated with docetaxel, carboplatin and trastuzumab showed a 39 per cent reduction in recurrence (21–53 per cent; P<0.001). Preclinical research indicating that using a non-anthracycline-containing regimen was better tolerated was also confirmed by the study results.

Data were presented at the San Antonio breast cancer symposium last week.