Professional paper
HER2 positive breast cancer in elderly patients: tumor biology and specificities of systemic treatment
Ljubica Vazdar
; Deparment of Medical Oncology; University Hospital for Tumors; Sestre milosrdnice University Hospital Center; Zagreb; Croatia
Mirjana Pavlović
; Deparment of Medical Oncology; University Hospital for Tumors; Sestre milosrdnice University Hospital Center; Zagreb; Croatia
Robert Šeparović
; Deparment of Medical Oncology; University Hospital for Tumors; Sestre milosrdnice University Hospital Center; Zagreb; Croatia
Tajana Silovski
; Deparment of Medical Oncology; University Hospital for Tumors; Sestre milosrdnice University Hospital Center; Zagreb; Croatia
Abstract
Breast cancer is the most common cancer in females and it is primarily disease of ageing with highest incidence in women older than 65 years. There are statistically signifi cant diff erences in breast cancer histology considering patients age and older patients are usually diagnosed with larger, hormone sensitive tumors. Approximately 15-25% of all women diagnosed with early breast cancer have tumor overexpressing HER2/neu receptor. A golden standard for early and metastatic
HER2 positive breast cancer treatment is trastuzumab. Studies in adjuvant sett ing showed that one year of trastuzumab therapy reduces the risk of death by one-third. Important side eff ect of trastuzumab treatment is cardiotoxicity, whose precise mechasnisms are not clear yet. The aim of our study was to determine diff erences in biological characteristics of tumor, treatment options and cardiac side eff ects in elderly patients with HER2 positive early breast cancer. Research included patients with early, histologically confi rmed, HER2 positive breast cancer who underwent prior breast surgery and axillary node dissection. Patients were divided into two groups considering age: group I ≤ 65 years of age and group II > 65 years of age. Patients received adjuvant anthracycline or non-antracycline based chemotherapy followed by one year of trastuzumab monotherapy. Cardiac function was monitored with echocardiography by measuring left ventricle ejection fraction (LVEF) in patients before starting trastuzumab, 3 months and 8 months after trastuzumab was introduced. Incidence of trastuzumab induced cardiac dysfunction showed no signifi cant difference between younger and older patients except in group
of older patients with cardiovascular risk who had signifi cantly higher incidence of cardiac dysfunction.
Keywords
breast cancer; HER2 positive; trastuzumab; cardiac dysfunction
Hrčak ID:
199202
URI
Publication date:
29.12.2014.
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