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Focus on HER2 and prognosis

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In patients with early-stage disease, HER2 is correlated with shorter disease-free survival in breast cancer

These Kaplan-Meier curves show the relationship between HER2 amplification and disease-free survival in node-negative (top) and node-positive (bottom) patients. In both cases, HER2 amplification, defined as having 3 or more copies of the HER2 gene, was significantly correlated with shorter disease-free survival (P=0.009, node-negative patients; P=0.001, node-positive patients).¹¹ Modified with permission from J Clin Oncol vol. 11(10), 1993:1936-1942.

HER2 is a negative prognostic factor

In both breast and ovarian cancers, HER2 is associated with shorter disease-free and overall survival.

In breast cancer
- A landmark 1987 study by Slamon et al (N=189) showed a highly statistically significant correlation between HER2 gene amplification and shorter time to disease relapse (P<0.0001) as well as shorter overall survival (P=0.0011)¹²
- In a 1993 study of patients with stage I-III disease (N=1056), 3-fold or greater gene amplification of HER2 was associated with significantly shorter disease-free survival (risk ratio=1.95, P=0.0027)¹¹
  - HER2 gene amplification was also significantly associated with pathologic stage at diagnosis, axillary node involvement, and histologic subtype
- In an additional study of 580 node-negative patients, HER2 overexpression was associated with higher risk of disease recurrence (risk ratio=2.36, P=0.002)¹³
In ovarian cancer
- HER2 positivity levels, as measured by FISH and IHC, have been associated with decreased overall survival in numerous clinical studies¹⁴
- HER2 positivity levels are also associated with an increase in relative risk of death caused by ovarian cancer¹⁴

Next Section: HER2 in breast cancer

References

Research HER Pathways

HER2