[annettchen]

This intrigued me, so I turned to Mr. Google (not the best source, I know, but when in a pinch...). Wikipedia tells me I was at least somewhat right with my guess regarding what "salvage" means in the context:

Salvage therapy, also known as rescue therapy, is therapy given to save or rescue a patient when other therapy has not worked, usually when time is short to avert death. Salvage therapy is given after an ailment does not respond to standard treatment. The word is not clearly defined; it is used both to mean a second attempt and a final attempt. The distinction from emergency medicine is that the latter involves intake of new emergencies (acute care for newly emerged situations), whereas salvage therapy involves last-chance efforts to save patients with any level of acute, subacute, or chronic conditions (not solely newly emergent ones). For example, chronic or subacute diseases that tend to require salvage therapy are HIV/AIDS, various late-stage cancers, and chronic cardiovascular disease deteriorating to life-threatening levels of cardiac arrhythmia or myocardial infarction. Salvage therapy drugs or drug combinations have, in general, much more severe side effects than the standard lines of therapy.


I do perfer to believe that what you're looking at is not a final attempt, but rather a second attempt. ;-) I.e. when the cancer acquires resistance to existing treatments (such as Trastuzumab and Pertuzumab for HER2+++), this medication would reverse that process. Intriguing. Thanks for all the work you do!