Tailored Chemotherapy For Her2 Positive Patients

Scientists from Canada have reported that chemotherapy may be most effective when choices of drugs are tailored to the specific gene mutation or gene amplification. They report that when treating Her2 positive breast cancer, patients who have HER2 gene amplification respond better to chemotherapy regimen containing anthracyclin group of drugs.

This study that is reported in the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine shows that breast cancer patients who have HER2 gene amplification are best treated with a combination of cyclophosphamide, epirubicin and fluorouracil (CEF) rather than with a combination of cyclophosphamide, methotrexate and fluorouracil (CMF). The study showed that use of CEF resulted in reduction of 10-year risk of death by about 48 percent in women who have HER2 gene amplification compared to therapy with CMF.

This study actually builds up on a prior study, which showed that CEF outperformed CMF in women with node-positive breast cancer. With these results the scientists went back to that study and reinvestigated the outcome of women with HER2 gene amplification.

This benefit of CEF over CMF was not available for women who had no HER2 gene amplification.