Breast cancer patients with tumors that overexpress the gene HER-2/neu are more likely to have a poor clinical outcome. However, a new study finds that HER-2/neu overexpression does not lead to a poorer response to chemotherapy in women with metastatic breast cancer.

There is some evidence that HER-2/neu overexpression is associated with a better response to anthracycline-based chemotherapy, but its association with response to taxane-based chemotherapy is not clear.

Dennis J. Slamon, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues analyzed retrospective data from a randomized clinical trial that had treated patients with metastatic breast cancer with either taxane-based epirubicin-paclitaxel (ET) chemotherapy or epirubicin-cyclophosphamide (EC) chemotherapy.

They found that HER-2/neu overexpression does not adversely influence response to first-line ET or EC chemotherapy and that a taxane-containing regimen, such as ET, may provide a preferential benefit to patients with tumors that overexpress HER-2/neu.

SOURCE:
Journal of the National Cancer Institute, August 4, 2004