Neil Vasan, MD, physician-scientist, assistant professor of medicine, Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbia University Medical Center, discusses advances made in the treatment of patients with small HER2-positive breast cancer.

Despite being a difficult-to-treat disease decades ago, significant advances in the field of HER2-positive breast cancer have transformed the management of the disease, Vasan explains. Particularly with the incorporation of HER2-directed therapies, the curability of HER2-positive breast cancer has risen for patients with moderate amounts of disease, as well as those with small amounts of disease, Vasan says.

Notably, some of these regimens can be de-escalated without compromising efficacy in patients with small HER2-positive breast cancer, including those with tumors less than 2 cm or negative lymph nodes, Vasan says. As such, these options allow treatments to be tailored to a patient’s individual needs, Vasan concludes.

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Neil Vasan, MD, discusses advances made in the treatment of patients with small HER2-positive breast cancer.  



Dr. Vasan on Advancing the Treatment of Small HER2+ Breast Cancer 

Neil Vasan, MD, PhD, oncologist, assistant professor of medicine, Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbia University, discusses future research directions for approved agents used in the treatment of patients with HER2-positive breast cancer.

Many novel therapies have been approved for the treatment of patients with metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer and are now being investigated in the up-front setting, or as adjuvant or neoadjuvant therapy, according to Vasan.

The antibody-drug conjugate fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (Enhertu) has been shown to have superior efficacy compared with ado-trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1; Kadcyla) in patients with metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer. As such, ongoing research efforts will aim to assess whether trastuzumab deruxtecan is also superior to T-DM1 in the neoadjuvant setting for patients with residual disease, Vasan concludes.

Neil Vasan, MD, PhD, discusses future research directions for approved agents used in the treatment of patients with HER2-positive breast cancer.

Neil Vasan, MD, PhD

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Dr. Vasan on Advancing the Treatment of Small HER2+ Breast Cancer

Dr. Vasan on Future Research Directions for Approved Agents in HER2+ Breast Cancer