Dr. Osborne Discusses Targeting the HER2 Pathway in Breast Cancer

C. Kent Osborne, MD, director, Dan L. Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center, Baylor College of Medicine, discusses targeting the HER2 pathway in breast cancer.

Osborne says that chemotherapy may be avoidable by blocking the HER2 pathway with targeted therapies. Along with his collegues, Osborne hypothesizes that it would be more effective to use more targeted agents to block the pathway, as trastuzumab (Herceptin) cannot block all of the receptors alone.

Studies were then done using dual HER2-targeted therapies without chemotherapy with pathologic complete remission rates ranging between 20% and 40%, suggesting that some patients with HER2 overexpressing tumors may not need to undergo chemotherapy at all.