The clinic significance of the HER-2/neu ECD in patients with recurrent and metastatic breast cancer receiving salvage chemotherapy

Abstract

Objective To investigate the clinical significance of the extracellular domain (ECD) of the HER-2/neu receptor in serum in patients with recurrent and metastatic breast cancer receiving salvage chemotherapy, nethods HER-2/neu ECD in sera obtained from 27 healthy volunteers,27 patients with be-nign breast disease, and 27 patients with recurrent and metastatic breast cancer around chemotherapy was measured by ELISA,and statistically analyzed in combination with clinical data. Results There was no sig-nificant difference in HER-2/neu ECD levels (below 15 μg/L) between healthy volunteers and patients with benign breast disease (P>0.05). The mean concentration of HER-2/neu ECD in patients with recurrent and metastatic breast cancer before salvage chemotherapy was (47.30±109.06) μg/L. As compared with healthy volunteers and patients with benign breast disease, patients with recurrent and metastatic breast canc-er had significantly higher levels of HER-2/neu ECD (P 0.05). The HER-2/neu ECD levels before chemotherapy had a negative correlation with overall survival (r=-0.601, P 0.05). As compared with patients with baseline below 15 μg/L,patients with initially elevated HER-2/neu ECD levels (>15 μg/L) had lower overall survival rate (P 0.05). Conclusion The monitoring of HER-2/neu ECD levels is helpful to detect recurrence and metastasis of breast cancer,select regimen of salvage chemotherapy as well as evaluate the efficacy and prognosis. Key words: Breast neoplasms; Serum; Therapy