Dr. Rao on Emerging Treatments in HER2+ Metastatic Breast Cancer

Ruta D. Rao, MD, associate professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology at Rush Medical College, as well as the director of the Coleman Foundation Comprehensive Breast Cancer Clinic and medical director of Rush University Cancer Center, discusses emerging treatments for patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer.

The breast cancer arena has seen a number of exciting developments in 2020, especially in the treatment of patients with HER2-positive disease, which saw 3 new FDA approvals, says Rao. The triplet of tucatinib (Tukysa), capecitabine (Xeloda), and trastuzumab (Herceptin) from the HER2CLIMB study has yielded exciting results due to the study's inclusion of patients with brain metastases, which has been an ongoing unmet need within this patient population, Rao says.

The antibody-drug conjugate fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (Enhertu) was another agent that was approved by the FDA for pretreated patients with HER2-positive breast cancer. Additionally, the approval of neratinib (Nerlynx) in the metastatic setting has caused excitement, Rao concluded.