Anthracycline-Free Neoadjuvant Treatment in Patients with HER2-Positive Breast Cancer: Real-Life Use of Pertuzumab, Trastuzumab and Taxanes Association with an Exploratory Analysis of PIK3CA Mutational Status.

HER2 is considered one of the most traditional prognostic and predictive biomarkers in breast cancer. Literature data confirmed that the addition of pertuzumab to a standard neoadjuvant chemotherapy backbone (either with or without anthracyclines), in patients with human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive early breast cancer (EBC), leads to a higher pathological complete response (pCR) rate, which is known to correlate with a better prognosis. In this retrospective analysis, 47 consecutive patients with HER2-positive EBC received sequential anthracyclines and taxanes plus trastuzumab (ATH) or pertuzumab, trastuzumab and docetaxel (THP).

Breast Cancer Derived Extracellular Vesicles in Bone Metastasis Induction and Their Clinical Implications as Biomarkers.

Cancer incidence and mortality are rapidly growing worldwide. The main risk factors for cancer can be associated with aging as well as the growth of the population and socioeconomic condition. Breast cancer, a crucial public health problem, is the second cause of death among women.

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy in breast cancer: a dose-dense schedule in real life and putative role of mutations.

Background: Dose-dense chemotherapy is one of the treatments of choice for neoadjuvant therapy in breast cancer (BC). Activating mutations in gene predict worse response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy for HER2-positive patients, while their role is less clearly defined for HER2-negative tumors.

Methods: We conducted a phase I/II study of neoadjuvant, sequential, dose-dense anthracycline/taxane chemotherapy, plus trastuzumab in HER2-positive patients and investigated the correlation of pre-treatment mutation status with pathologic complete response (pCR) and long-term outcome in a real-life setting.

Prognostic significance of clinicopathological factors in early breast cancer: 20 years of follow-up in a single-center analysis.

Background: To quantify the effect of traditional prognostic factors [nodal status, estrogen-receptor (ER), progesterone-receptor (PR), human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)] on long-term outcome of patients with early breast cancer (EBC), treated in clinical practice over a period of about twenty years.

Results: 1198 consecutive patients were identified. Median DFS (disease-free survival): ER+/PR±/HER2-, 165 months (mo) if node-negative (N0) and 114mo if node-positive (N+) ( < 0.