Neoadjuvant Efficacy of Three Targeted Therapy Strategies for HER2-Positive Breast Cancer Based on the Same Chemotherapy Regimen

Simple Summary Approximately 15-25% of breast cancers are human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive. With the progress in medicine, promising results have been shown by dual targeted therapy with new drugs in the neoadjuvant setting. In our study, we compared the effectiveness of three neoadjuvant targeted therapy strategies (H + Py, trastuzumab plus pyrotinib; H, trastuzumab; HP, trastuzumab plus pertuzumab) based on the same chemotherapy regimen (TC, docetaxel and carboplatin) for HER2-positive early breast cancer. The pathological complete response (pCR) rate was 55.6% in the TCH + Py cohort, 32.7% in the TCH cohort, and 56.6% in the TCHP cohort. The pCR rate was higher with TCH + Py than with TCH. There was no significant difference in pCR rate between the TCH + Py and TCHP cohorts. (1) Background: The objective of our study was to provide evidence for choosing the optimal neoadjuvant therapy strategies for patients with human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive early breast cancer. Three neoadjuvant targeted therapy strategies (H + Py, trastuzumab plus pyrotinib; H, trastuzumab; HP, trastuzumab plus pertuzumab) based on the same chemotherapy regimen (TC, docetaxel and carboplatin) were included in the present study; (2) Methods: We retrospectively analyzed patients with HER2-positive breast cancer who were treated with neoadjuvant TCH + Py, TCH or TCHP, followed by surgery. The outcome was the pathological complete response (pCR) rate; (3) Results: In total, 545 patients were enrolled. The pCR rate was 55.6% (35/63) in the TCH + Py cohort, 32.7% (93/284) in the TCH cohort, and 56.6% (112/198) in the TCHP cohort. The multivariate analysis showed that patients who received TCH had less possibility to achieve pCR than those who received TCH + Py (odds ratio (OR) = 0.334, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.181-0.619, p < 0.001), while patients who received TCHP had comparable possibility to those who received TCH + Py (OR = 1.043, 95%CI: 0.554-1.964, p = 0.896); (4) Conclusions: TCH + Py provides a better pCR rate compared with TCH, and a comparable pCR rate with TCHP among patients with HER2-positive breast cancer in the neoadjuvant setting. The present study supports a novel potential treatment option for these patients. Further studies need to be explored in the future.

Automated summary

According to this study, the TCH + Py regimen has a higher pCR rate compared to the TCH regimen in neoadjuvant therapy for HER2-positive breast cancer, and a comparable pCR rate with the TCHP regimen.