RESUMO
BACKGROUND: In this study, we examined patients who had non-progressive disease for at least 2 years after diagnosis of inoperable locoregional recurrent or metastatic breast cancer under continuous trastuzumab treatment. Our primary goal was to assess the long-term outcome of patients with durable response to trastuzumab. METHODS: 268 patients with HER2-positive inoperable locally recurrent or metastatic breast cancer and non-progressive disease for at least 2 years under trastuzumab treatment were documented retrospectively or prospectively in the HER-OS registry, an online documentation tool, between December 2006 and September 2010 by 71 German oncology centers. The study end point was time to tumor progression. RESULTS: Overall, 47.1% of patients (95% confidence interval (CI): 39.9-54.1%) remained in remission for more than 5 years, while the median time to progression was 4.5 years (95% CI: 4.0-6.6 years). Lower age (<50 years) and good performance status (ECOG 0) at time of trastuzumab treatment initiation as well as complete remission after initial trastuzumab treatment were associated with longer time to progression. Interruption of trastuzumab therapy correlated with shorter time to progression. CONCLUSIONS: HER2-positive patients, who initially respond to palliative treatment with trastuzumab, can achieve a long-term tumor remission of several years.
Assuntos
Anticorpos Monoclonais Humanizados/uso terapêutico , Antineoplásicos/uso terapêutico , Neoplasias da Mama/tratamento farmacológico , Neoplasias da Mama/metabolismo , Receptor ErbB-2/metabolismo , Adulto , Idoso , Idoso de 80 Anos ou mais , Anticorpos Monoclonais Humanizados/farmacologia , Antineoplásicos/farmacologia , Neoplasias da Mama/mortalidade , Neoplasias da Mama/patologia , Progressão da Doença , Feminino , Humanos , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Gradação de Tumores , Metástase Neoplásica , Estadiamento de Neoplasias , Receptor ErbB-2/antagonistas & inibidores , Sistema de Registros , Indução de Remissão , Fatores de Risco , Trastuzumab , Resultado do TratamentoRESUMO
Increased expression and secretion of heparanase (Hpa) by tumor cells promotes tumor invasion through extracellular matrices, tissue destruction, angiogenesis, and metastasis. Here, we show the existence in breast cancer patients of Hpa-specific T lymphocytes by fluorescence-activated cell sorting flow cytometry using Hpa peptide-MHC class I tetramers. We furthermore show memory T-cell responses in a high proportion of breast cancer patients to Hpa-derived HLA-A2-restricted peptides, leading to production of IFN-gamma and to generation of antitumor CTLs lysing breast cancer cells. Such CTLs recognized endogenously processed respective Hpa peptides on Hpa-transfected and Hpa-expressing untransfected breast carcinoma cells. According to these results and to the fact that such cells were not found in healthy people, Hpa seems to be an attractive new tumor-associated antigen and its HLA-A2-restricted peptides ought to be good candidates for peptide vaccination to reactivate memory immune responses to invasive and metastatic cancer cells.