Patients with small, node-negative HER2-positive breast carcinoma may benefit from trastuzumab therapy

Our study shows that women with small, node-negative HER2-positive breast cancer may benefit from trastuzumab therapy.  

These women actually have a significant risk of local recurrence in the breast after breast conservation therapy (~10%), but trastuzumab may reduce their risk to about 1%

Bibliographic Reference:

Kiess AP et al.: "Adjuvant trastuzumab reduces locoregional recurrence in women who receive breast-conservation therapy for lymph node-negative, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-positive breast cancer", Cancer. 2011 Sep 1. doi: 10.1002/cncr.26484. [Epub ahead of print]

Ana Kiess

Department of Radiation Oncology, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York