ArticleCancer research and treatment2026
Differences in Responses to Neoadjuvant Anti-HER2 Therapy between HER2 2+/ISH+ and HER2 3+ in HER2-Positive Breast Cancer.
Article in Cancer research and treatment, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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1 citing paper in PubMed.
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9 authors.
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Abstract
purposeDual anti-human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) drugs have become the standard regimen for neoadjuvant systemic treatment (NST) to HER2-positive breast cancer patients. However, the efficacy varies greatly among patients with different HER2 protein expression levels. MATERIALS AND
methodsA total of 575 HER2-positive breast cancer patients from multiple centers throughout China from 2013 to 2022 were retrospectively analyzed. We compared clinicopathological features in different HER2 immunohistochemistry classes (HER2 2+/in situ hybridization [ISH] + or HER2 3+), and their difference in response to NST and survival with single or dual anti-HER2 drugs. Drug sensitivity assays were used to evaluate different efficacy of anti-HER2 drugs in vitro.
resultsCompared to HER2 3+ subgroup, the HER2 2+/ISH+ group had a higher proportion of hormone receptor-positive status (48.7% vs. 76.1%, p < 0.001), more HER2 protein loss after NST, lower pathological complete response (pCR) rate (46.07% vs. 16.24%, p < 0.001), and tended to have worse disease-free survival (DFS). In HER2 2+/ISH+ patients, treated with pertuzumab and trastuzumab in combination had no significant improvement in pCR (19.12% vs. 12.24%, p=0.287) and DFS (p=0.908) than using alone. Drug sensitivity assay showed poor efficacy with dual anti-HER2 drugs in HER2 2+/ISH+ cell lines; however, fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan drugs had a satisfactory effect.
conclusionOwing to the differences in clinicopathological features and treatment efficacy, we considered the HER2 2+/ISH+ group to be a distinct subtype and defined it as the HER2-moderate-positive subgroup. In this subgroup, dual anti-HER2 drugs did not exert significant improvement in pCR and DFS. Therefore, treatment optimization is warranted, with antibody-drug conjugate drugs as potential options.
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