Dr. Hamilton on the Results of the KATHERINE Trial in HER2+ Breast Cancer

Erika P. Hamilton, MD, director of the Breast Cancer and Gynecologic Research Program and principal investigator at Sarah Cannon Research Institute, discusses the superiority of ado-trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1; Kadcyla) in the phase III KATHERINE study.

Treatment is becoming clearer for patients with early HER2-positive disease, says Hamilton. It is important to treat patients with early HER2-positive breast cancer with neoadjuvant chemotherapy to reduce disease burden. Although pertuzumab (Perjeta) and neratinib (Nerlynx) are also approved for use in the adjuvant setting, T-DM1 has been proven to be superior.

The KATHERINE study defined high-risk patients as those who did not have a pathologic complete response to treatment in the neoadjuvant setting. By doing that, researchers were able to pick out a more accurate high-risk population and show a benefit in invasive disease-free survival. It is very important to offer these patients neoadjuvant therapy as a way to classify their risk and decide what additional treatment they may need, concludes Hamilton.