San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium 2019: human epidermal growth factor receptor 2(HER2)-positive breast cancer and image-guided biopsy to detect pathologic complete response (pCR)

Abstract

At the 2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, new data on the management of heavily pretreated human epidermal growth factor receptor 2(HER2)-positive metastatic breast cancer were discussed. The phase 3 HER2CLIMB and the phase 2 DESTINY-Breast01 trials investigating tucatinib and trastuzumab deruxtecan, respectively, have met their primary endpoints. In an early disease setting, four studies investigated whether image-guided biopsies could identify patients with a pathologic complete response (pCR) to neoadjuvant chemotherapy, thus allowing safe omission of surgery. As residual disease was missed in a significant number of cases, these trials could not confirm data from smaller previous studies.