Impact of Her-2 Overexpression on Survival of Patients with Metastatic Breast Cancer

Abstract

<br /> <strong><span style="font-size: small;">Introduction: </span></strong><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: small;">Breast cancer is a complex and heterogeneous disease which is increasingly important as a public health problem. In Brazil, 57,960 new cases have been estimated to be the burden in 2016 and 2017. Despite advances in early diagnosis and therapy, approximately 20-30% of patients, even with early stage lesions, will develop distant metastatic disease. Tumors with similar clinical and pathological presentations may have differing behavior, so it </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: small;">is important to understand specific biological characteristics. </span></span><strong><span style="font-size: small;">Objective: </span></strong><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: small;">To investigate tumor markers of primary </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: small;">tumors featuring pleural metastasis to identify organ-specific characteristics of metastatic breast cancer. Methods: </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: small;">In a historical cohort study, immunohistochemistry was performed on cell blocks of neoplastic pleural effusions and results were compared with clinicopathological data. </span></span><strong><span style="font-size: small;">Results: </span></strong><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: small;">The median survival time with Her-2 overexpression in malignant pleural effusions was 2.2 months, whereas cases without overexpression survived, on average, for seven months (p = 0.02). </span></span><strong><span style="font-size: small;">Conclusions: </span></strong><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: small;">We emphasize that metastases may behave independently of primary tumors, but the present results indicate that therapeutic agents targeting Her-2 overexpression could increase survival in metastatic breast cancer cases. </span></span>