ArticleFrontiers in oncology2026
Efficacy and safety of brain radiotherapy combined with antibody-drug conjugates in patients with HER2-positive breast cancer brain metastases.
Article in Frontiers in oncology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) have shown promising efficacy in patients with human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive breast cancer and brain metastases. This study aimed to investigate the efficacy and safety of brain radiotherapy combined with ADCs in patients with HER2-positive breast cancer and brain metastases in routine Chinese clinical practice. We retrospectively analyzed data from 35 patients with HER2-positive breast cancer and brain metastases treated with brain radiotherapy plus trastuzumab deruxtecan (T-DXd) or trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1) at the Department of Radiation Oncology, The Fourth Hospital of Hebei Medical University, between January 2023 and January 2025. Most patients had prior pyrotinib treatment. Intracranial progression-free survival (iPFS), progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS), and treatment safety were analyzed. Median follow-up was 15.7 months (interquartile range [IQR], 8.7-20.8). Median iPFS was 8.4 months (95% confidence interval [CI] 6.9-9.8), median PFS was 7.9 months (95% CI 5.9-10.4), and median OS was 11.8 months (95% CI 8.6-13.8). Intracranial objective response rate (ORR) was 74.3%, and intracranial disease control rate (DCR) was 94.3%. Median iPFS was 7.6 months in the T-DM1 group versus 10.9 months in the T-DXd group (P < 0.001); median PFS was 6.5 months versus 9.7 months (P = 0.021); median OS was 10.4 months versus 12.9 months (P = 0.046). The most common grade ≥3 adverse events were decreased appetite (23%), fatigue (11%), leukopenia (11%), and thrombocytopenia (9%). Among adverse events of special interest, radiation necrosis occurred in 9% (3/35), all were grade 1-2 and occurred exclusively in patients receiving concurrent radiotherapy plus T-DM1; interstitial lung disease occurred in 3% (1/35), grade 1, in the T-DXd group. In Chinese clinical practice, brain radiotherapy combined with either T-DXd or T-DM1 showed promising preliminary efficacy and tolerable safety signals in heavily pyrotinib-pretreated HER2-positive breast cancer patients with brain metastases in this retrospective single-center cohort. In this unadjusted retrospective cohort, patients receiving radiotherapy combined with T-DXd exhibited longer univariate survival outcomes compared with those treated with T-DM1. However, these univariate observational results are preliminary and require prospective multicenter validation with multivariate adjustment.
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.