Objective To analyze the factors associated with the adoption of targeted therapy in patients with human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive breast cancer and to generate evidence to inform decision-making on public security policy regarding innovative anticancer medicines for the benefit of patients. Methods The study population comprised female patients diagnosed with HER2-positive breast cancer and treated at Fujian Cancer Hospital from 2014 to 2020. The patients were eligible for targeted therapy. The demographic and sociological characteristics and clinical information of patients were extracted from the hospital information system. We performed binary logistic regression analysis of factors associated with the adoption of targeted therapy in patients with HER2-positive breast cancer. We also divided the participants into two groups according to their tumor stage for subgroup analysis. Results A total of 1 041 female patients with HER2-positive breast cancer were included, among them, 803 received targeted therapy. In September 2017, molecular-targeted medicines for HER2-positive breast cancer began to be included in the local basic health insurance program. Only 282 (35.1%) patients adopted targeted therapy before September 2017, after which this number increased to 521 (64.9%). Among the patients who adopted targeted therapy, most were formally employed (45.8%) and enrollees of the urban employee health insurance program (66.0%). Among those who did not adopt targeted therapy, most were unemployed (42.4%) and enrollees of the resident health insurance program (50.0%). Binary logistic regression analysis revealed that patient occupation, gene expression of estrogen receptor, tumor stage, surgery or not, radiotherapy or not, and undergoing treatment before or after September 2017 were correlated with the adoption of targeted therapy (P<0.05). Conclusions Inclusion of targeted medicines for HER2-positive breast cancer in the health insurance program substantially increased the overall administration of these therapies. Individual affordability is a critical factor associated with the application of targeted therapy in eligible patients. Future policies should enhance the public security of patients with a relatively weak ability to pay and provide insurance coverage for innovative anti-cancer medicines.
Tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) are the standard of care for non-small cell lung cancer patients with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation. The efficacy of TKIs and prognosis of EGFR-mutated patients with compound EGFR mutation, oncogene mutation, suppresser gene mutation or other diver gene mutation are worse than those of patients with a single EGFR mutation. This article makes a review of related clinical researches aiming to provide references for clinical scenarios. To sum up, molecular alterations and clinical features should be correlated as accurately and dynamically as possible in the diagnostic and therapeutic process, and combined therapeutic strategies should be chosen flexibly and reasonably to improve patients’ survival and prognosis.
ObjectiveTo systematically evaluate the correlation of amplification of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) with the clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis of colorectal cancer patients.MethodsPubMed, EMbase, Cochrane Library, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (CBM), Wanfang, and other databases were searched, and cohort studies focused on the relationship between HER2 amplification and clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis of colorectal cancer patients were included. The retrieval time limit was from October 2020, and RevMan 5.4 software was used for meta-analysis.ResultsA total of 9 studies (11 cohorts) were included for meta-analysis of 7 209 patients with colorectal cancer. Results of the meta-analysis showed that HER2 amplification was not associated with overall survival [HR=1.10, 95%CI (0.98, 1.24), P=0.11]. HER2 amplification was not correlated with gender [OR=0.98, 95%C1 (0.74, 1.31), P=0.90] and tumor differentiation [OR=0.80, 95%C1 (0.49, 1.32), P=0.39], but correlated with the tumor location [OR=1.85, 95%C1 (1.01, 3.37), P=0.04], RAS wild-type gene [OR=6.36, 95%C1 (3.41, 11.87), P<0.000 01], TNM stage [OR=0.45, 95%C1 (0.32, 0.64), P<0.000 01], lymph node metastasis [OR=1.54, 95%C1 (1.12, 2.13), P=0.008], and the depth of tumor invasion [OR=0.17, 95%C1 (0.05, 0.55), P=0.003].ConclusionCurrent evidence shows that HER2 amplification is not associated with OS in patients with colorectal cancer, but associated with tumor infiltration, lymph node metastasis, TNM stage, tumor site, and RAS genotype.
ObjectiveTo summarize the correlation between human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) gene expression and the efficacy of targeted therapy for patients with HER2-positive breast cancer, and to summarize the new progress in the study of HER2 gene copy number. MethodThe relevant literatures on researches of targeted therapy effectiveness for patients with HER2-positive breast cancer were retrieved and reviewed. ResultsHER2 gene copy number and HER2/centromere on chromosome 17 (CEP17) ratio were related to the prognosis of patients with HER2-positive breast cancer, and circulating tumor DNA sequencing was expected to be a predictive indicator of targeted therapy effectiveness. ConclusionHigher copy number of HER2 gene might be associated with a better prognosis of HER2-positive breast cancer, and HER2/CEP17 ratio and circulating tumour DNA are of some significances in evaluating treatment response of trastuzumab for patients with HER2-positive breast cancer.
ObjectiveTo analyze the clinicopathologic characteristics and prognosis of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-negative breast cancer patients with different expression status of estrogen receptor (ER). MethodsThe patients with HER2-negative breast cancer met the inclusion and exclusion criteria and were treated in the Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University from January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2019 were retrospectively collected, and then were assigned into 3 groups according to the ER expression status: ER-negative (ER expression positive rate <1%) group, ER-low expression (ER expression positive rate 1%–10%) group, and ER expression positive rate >10% group. The differences of clinicopathologic characteristics, therapy, and prognosis among the 3 groups were compared. And the risk factors affecting recurrence and metastasis of patients with ER-low expression were analyzed by Cox proportional hazards regression model. ResultsA total of 610 patients with HER2-negative breast cancer were included in this study, including 130 patients in the ER-negative group, 48 patients in the ER-low expression group, and 432 patients in the ER expression positive rate >10% group. The Bonferroni method was used to correct the test level after pairwise comparison, it was found that the histological grade was later (P<0.001, P=0.023) and the Ki-67 expression was higher (P<0.001, P=0.023) in the ER-negative group and ER-low expression group as compared with the ER expression positive rate >10% group; The proportion of the patients receiving chemotherapy in the ER-negative group was higher than that of the ER expression positive rate >10% group (χ2=10.310, P=0.001), while which had no statistical difference between the ER-low expression group and the ER-negative group or the ER expression positive rate >10% group (Fisher exact probability method, P=1.000; χ2= 3.585, P=0.058); The proportion of patients receiving endocrine therapy in the ER-low expression group was higher than that in the ER-negative group (χ2=36.333, P<0.001) and lower than the ER expression positive rate >10% group (χ2=246.996, P<0.001). The difference in disease-free survival (DFS) curves among 3 groups was statistically significant (χ2=46.805, P<0.001); There were no statistical differences in the overall survival (OS) curve and DFS curve between the ER-negative group and the ER-low expression group (Two stage test, P=0.786; χ2=1.141, P=0.286), and which in the ER expression positive rate >10% group were significantly better than thoses in the ER-negative group (χ2=10.137, P=0.001; χ2=39.344, P<0.001) and the ER-low expression group (χ2=4.075, P=0.044; χ2=31.911, P<0.001). The results of multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression analysis showed that N1 and N2 [N0 as reference: RR (95%CI)=7.740 (1.939, 30.897), P=0.004; RR (95%CI)=9.513 (1.990, 45.478), P=0.005) and T3 [T1 as reference: RR (95%CI)=27.357 (2.188, 342.041), P=0.010] increased the probabilities of recurrence and metastasis HER2-negative breast cancer patients with ER-low expression. ConclusionsAccording to results of this study, patients with HER2-negative breast cancer showed certain differences in histological grade and Ki-67 expression among patients with three different ER expression status, but no statistical difference is found between ER-low expression and ER-negative breast cancer, and the prognoses of both are worse than that of ER expression positive rate >10% breast cancer patients. Lymph node metastasis and larger tumor are risk factors affecting recurrence and metastasis in ER-low expression breast cancer patients.
Objective To summarize the research progress of distributional heterogeneity of the molecular pathology characteristics in breast cancer. Methods The related literatures about the distribution of the molecular pathology characteristics in breast cancer were reviewed. Results The breast cancer had the same heterogeneity as other cancers. At the same time, the molecular pathology characteristics, such as estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), Ki-67, and human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER-2), had the distributional heterogeneity. The distributional heterogeneity of molecular pathology characteristics in breast cancer could effect the pathologic diagnosis, the treatment, and the prognosis. Conclusion Although there are some new techniques which were used to investigate the heterogeneity of breast cancer, but each way has some problems. The more attention should be paid to the research about the distributional heterogeneity of the molecular pathology characteristics in breast cancer.
ObjectiveTo compare the clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis of young early breast cancer patients with different human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) expression levels, and to analyze the clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis of young early breast cancer patients with low HER2 expression. MethodsA total of 1 723 breast cancer patients who were treated in the Department of Breast Surgery of the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University between June 2016 and June 2018 were collected and divided into three groups: HER2-negative, low-expression, and high-expression. The clinicopathological characteristics of the three groups were compared, and the relationship between HER2 expression and patients’ prognosis was analyzed. ResultsThere were 512 HER2-negative patients, 748 HER2-low expression patients, and 463 HER2-high expression patients. The results of the clinical pathological characteristics analysis of the three groups of patients showed that there were no statistical differences in marital status, menopausal status, family history, single T stage (tumor size), single M stage (distant metastasis), affected side, vascular tumor thrombus, and radiotherapy in the three groups of breast cancer patients with different HER2 expression levels (P>0.05). However, there were statistical differences in age, Ki-67 expression level, N stage, TNM stage, surgical method, estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor status, histological type, histological grade, whether to receive neoadjuvant therapy and adjuvant chemotherapy in breast cancer patients with different HER2 expression levels (P<0.05). The results of survival analysis showed that the prognosis of early breast cancer patients may not be significantly correlated with the HER2 expression level, and the prognosis of young early breast cancer patients may also not be statistically correlated with the HER2 expression status. ConclusionsBreast cancer patients with different HER2 expression levels differ in multiple clinicopathological characteristics, but these differences do not significantly affect the prognosis of the patients. Especially for early-stage breast cancer, HER2 expression levels do not seem to have a significant impact on prognosis. This suggests that HER2 status may not be a decisive factor in treatment and prognosis assessment, and other pathological characteristics and treatment methods need to be considered comprehensively. The prognosis of young breast cancer patients in early stage may also not be statistically correlated with HER2 expression status.
The incidence and mortality of esophageal cancer in China rank the fifth and fourth, respectively, with squamous carcinoma accounting for more than 90%. Currently, the treatment of esophageal squamous carcinoma mainly includes surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and endoscopic treatment. However, the 5-year survival rate is only about 20%. At present, the treatment of esophageal squamous carcinoma seems to reach a plateau. Thus, it is urgent to develop new and more effective drugs and treatments. In this paper, the clinical research progresses of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)- targeted therapy of esophageal squamous carcinomas were summarized, including anti-EGFR monoclonal antibodies, such as cetuximab and nimotuzumab, and EGFR-tyrosine kinase inhibitor, such as gefitinib, erlotinib, and ecclinib.
ObjectiveTo summarize and analyze the long-term follow-up results and the recent researches of anti-epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER-2) dual targeted therapy for patients with human HER-2-positive breast cancer in terms of neoadjuvant, adjuvant, and salvage treatment so as to further improve the understanding of dual targeted therapy against HER-2 in clinical practice.MethodThe literatures on studies of dual targeted therapy for patients with HER-2-positive breast cancer in recent years were reviewed and analyzed.ResultThe anti-HER-2 dual targeted therapy could achieve a higher pathological complete response rate and better prognosis in the neoadjuvant therapy, as well as in adjuvant therapy and salvage treatment.ConclusionIn recent years, different combinations of targeted drugs in neoadjuvant, adjuvant, and salvage treatment of patients with HER-2-positive breast cancer have shown a benefit in clinical application, but more large sample prospective clinical researches are needed so as to find out optimal combination of targeted drugs with more benefits, less complications, and more economies.
Objective Investigate the effect and treatment prospects of urokinase-type plasminogen activator receptor（uPAR）in human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 （HER-2） positive breast cancer. Method Aricals related effect of uPAR in HER-2 positive breast caner were retrieved through Pubmed， and the role of uPAR was reviewed. Results uPAR played a very important role in the HER-2 positive breast cancer， anti-uPAR monomer or uPAR binding inhibitors could inhibit the growth， invasion and metastasis of breast cancer cells. Conclusion uPAR is one of the effective target for breast cancer， and it provides a new breakthrough in the treatment of HER-2 positive breast cancer.