Adding pertuzumab to adjuvant therapy for high-risk HER2-positive early breast cancer in APHINITY: a GRADE analysis

Aim: Adding pertuzumab to standard trastuzumab-based adjuvant therapy significantly improved invasive disease-free survival (IDFS) in the APHINITY trial. However, the magnitude of benefit was marginal in the overall population. Methods: We used GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation) analysis on data from APHINITY to build summary-of-findings tables to evaluate the efficacy, safety and quality of evidence of predefined clinical outcomes for the addition of pertuzumab to trastuzumab-based adjuvant therapy in patients with high-risk HER2-positive early breast cancer. Results: Pertuzumab significantly improved 3-year, event-free, absolute benefit in disease-free survival, IDFS and distant relapse-free interval (DFRI) in patients with node-positive or hormone receptor-negative disease. The analysis provides strength of evidence supporting the addition of pertuzumab in this patient population.