thought this might make your day,week, year--the day may be approaching that some, at

[Lani]

first, and hopefully all finally, her2+ bc patients can be treated without chemo, just with targeted agents

April 3rd in Orlando FL at the 2011 Annual AACR meeting Martine Piccart-Gebhart will give the following presentation:

Room W209, Orange County Convention Center
Cure of HER2-Positive Breast Cancer without Chemotherapy at the Doorstep

CME-Designated Session

Martine J. Piccart-Gebhart, Institut Jules Bordet, Brussels, Belgium
There are two features that make HER2-positive breast cancer rather unique: 1) oncogene addiction and 2) the fact that HER2 overexpression is probably immunogenic. Dual HER2 blockade using either trastuzumab and pertuzumab or trastuzumab and lapatinib has recently generated impressive clinical results in two neoadjuvant randomized trials, NEOSPHERE (n=417 pts) and NEOALTTO (n=450 pts), with a doubling of the pathologic complete response rate. These two trials also show impressive antitumor activity with the antiHER2 agents alone (e.g., not combined with a taxane) and demonstrate the clinical relevance of the inactivation of a single oncogene in some patients. In the meantime, there is growing evidence that the immune system plays an important role in the antitumor effect of antiHER2 monoclonal antibodies. With better tools to identify patients able to generate a robust antiHER2 immune response and the availability of dual HER2 targeting, it becomes possible to design new treatment approaches without chemotherapy for select women with HER2-positive breast cancer.