Dr. Vasan on Future Research Directions for Approved Agents in 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.