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Published on: May 18, 2020
Autoimmunity and Benefit from Trastuzumab Treatment in Breast Cancer: Results from the HERA Trial
Amir Sonnenblick1, Andrew Bailey2, Beatrice Uziely3
1Institute of Oncology, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Tel Aviv, Israel; Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Background/Aim:
This study sought to determine whether an autoimmune background could identify patients with HER2-positive early breast cancer (EBC) who derive differential benefit from primary adjuvant trastuzumab-based therapy.
Patients And Methods:
HERA is an international randomized trial of 5,102 women with HER2-positive EBC, who were enrolled to either receive adjuvant trastuzumab or not. In this exploratory analysis, the interaction between autoimmune history and the magnitude of trastuzumab benefit was evaluated.
Results:
A total of 5,099 patients were included in the current analysis. Among them, 325 patients (6.4%) had autoimmune disease history, 295 of whom had active disease. Patients were randomly assigned to trastuzumab or no-trastuzumab groups. Similar reductions in the risk of events in patients with and without autoimmune history were observed (interaction p=0.95 for disease-free survival, and p=0.62 for overall survival).
Conclusion:
No evidence of a differential benefit from trastuzumab in patients with a medical history of autoimmune disease was found.
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