Heart of Darkness: The Downside of Trastuzumab

Abstract

Trastuzumab has been shown to be quite effective in reducing suffering and mortality from breast cancer in both the metastatic and adjuvant settings. With short follow-up, remarkably consistent results across five adjuvant, prospective, randomized clinical trials suggest that trastuzumab may decrease the odds of distant recurrence and mortality by approximately one half and one third, respectively. Dr George Sledge, who discussed the first presentations of the adjuvant trials at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, proclaimed these results “astonishing,” and we agree (oral communication, May 2005).