ArticleESMO open2025
Results of a patient-level pooled analysis of three studies of trastuzumab deruxtecan in HER2-positive breast cancer with active brain metastasis.
Article in ESMO open, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Patritumab deruxtecan in leptomeningeal metastatic disease of solid tumors: the phase 2 TUXEDO-3 trial.Nature medicine · 2025Trial
- Antibody-drug conjugates in breast cancer: Progress and future directions.Cell reports. Medicine · 2026Review
- The evolving landscape of brain metastasis: volume II.Trends in cancer · 2026Review
- Case Report: From standard therapy refusal to rare metastases: a case of untreated HER2-positive breast cancer progressing to brain and thyroid metastases after seven years of follow-up during which the patient received only Chinese herbal medicine.Frontiers in oncology · 2026Article
- Clinical subtypes in breast cancer patients with brain metastases from an ambispective registry of advanced breast cancer, GEICAM/2014-03 (RegistEM).Therapeutic advances in medical oncology · 2026Article
- Novel treatment strategies and key research priorities for patients with breast cancer and central nervous system (CNS) metastases.NPJ breast cancer · 2025Review
- Dual Role of Diallyl Disulfide (DADS) on Invasive Potential and β-Catenin Dynamics in HER2-Positive Breast Cancer Cells.Cancers · 2025Article
- Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
22 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundBrain metastases (BMs) are common in human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive advanced breast cancer, increasing morbidity and mortality. Systemic therapy for BMs can be effective, with the triple combination of trastuzumab, capecitabine, and tucatinib being a potential standard. More recently, intracranial activity of antibody-drug conjugates has been reported, but the size of individual studies has been small. Therefore, this patient-level pooled analysis was conducted. PATIENTS AND
methodsThis is a patient-level pooled analysis of the prospective phase II DEBBRAH and TUXEDO-1 trials and the retrospective DFCI/Duke/MDACC cohort. Patients with evaluable active BMs (defined as newly diagnosed and untreated or progressing with measurable tumor-related size after previous local therapy) from HER2-positive breast cancer (BC) and treated with trastuzumab deruxtecan (T-DXd) included in these studies were eligible. The primary endpoint was intracranial objective response rate (ORR-IC) by Response Assessment in Neuro-Oncology (RANO)-BM criteria.
resultsOverall, 37 patients were assessable for intracranial response assessment. BMs progressing after prior local therapy were present in 64.9% of patients. The median patient age was 49.1 years. All patients had received prior trastuzumab and the median number of prior systemic treatment lines was 3 (0-13). The pooled ORR-IC by RANO-BM criteria was 64.9% [95% confidence interval (CI) 47.5% to 79.8%] with low heterogeneity observed between the studies included. The clinical benefit rate by RANO-BM was 81.1% (95% CI 64.8% to 92.0%). The median progression-free survival was 13.3 months (95% CI 8.4-22.6 months) and the median overall survival was 22.5 months (95% CI 14.9 months-not achieved) with high heterogeneity between studies and numerically longer in patients with few prior treatment lines. Quality of life remained stable throughout treatment, with no new safety concerns.
conclusionsThis patient-level pooled analysis of DEBBRAH, TUXEDO-1, and the DFCI/Duke/MDACC cohort indicates clinically relevant intracranial activity of T-DXd in patients with active HER2-positive BC, BMs, and extensive systemic pretreatment. The results therefore support the use of T-DXd when clinically indicated irrespective of BMs.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.