Do all patients with HER2-positive breast cancer require one year of adjuvant trastuzumab?: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Abstract

522 Background: One year of adjuvant trastuzumab (T) remains the standard treatment for patients with HER2 positive breast cancer. Results from randomized trials with diverse non-inferiority margins comparing one year to a shorter duration of adjuvant T were not consistent, particularly with the PERSEPHONE and the final PHARE and Short-HER trials’ results. Our objective was to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials in patients with HER2 positive breast cancer to assess whether a shorter duration of adjuvant T was non-inferior to one year of treatment. Methods: PubMed, EMBASE and The Cochrane Library were searched for eligible randomized trials. Hazard ratios (HR) for disease free and overall survival (DFS, OS) were weighted using generic inverse variance and pooled in a meta-analysis using random-effects models. The median of non-inferiority margins derived from each trial was calculated to set a non-inferiority margin of 1.29 for the pooled analysis. Subgroup analyses compared survival outcomes by estrogen receptor (ER) status, nodal status, length and timing of trastuzumab treatment. Results: Data of 11,376 patients from 5 trials were analyzed. A shorter duration of T was non-inferior to one year of therapy for DFS (HR 1.13, 95%CI 1.03-1.24) but worse for OS (HR 1.16, 95%CI 1.01-1.32). In addition, the non-inferiority for DFS was met for patients with ER positive disease (HR 1.1, 95%CI 0.95-1.28) and patients treated with 6 months (HR 1.09, 95%CI 0.98-1.22) or sequential T (HR 0.97, 95%CI 0.75-1.27). Conversely, the non-inferiority for DFS was not met for patients with ER negative disease (HR 1.22, 95%CI 1.06-1.41), patients treated with 9 weeks (HR 1.26, 95%CI 1.02-1.55) or concomitant T (HR 1.25, 95%CI 1.07-1.45) and patients with node negative (HR 1.12, 95% 0.93-1.35) or positive (HR 1.16, 95%CI 0.99-1.36) disease. Conclusions: Within the limitations of the available data and the different non-inferiority margins used in randomized trials, a shorter duration of adjuvant T is non-inferior to one year of therapy for DFS in patients with HER2 positive breast cancer, particularly in patients with ER positive disease. Further trials with appropriately chosen non-inferiority margins are needed to confirm the optimal duration of T in patients with low-risk disease.