Treatments used for HER2-positive breast cancers could help patients with rare gastrointestinal cancer (Bile duct cancer)

Medical Xpress / European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Symposium ^ | Oct. 23, 2024 | Yoshiaki Nakamura et al

[ConservativeMind]

Drugs designed to target HER2-postive breast cancer could also benefit some patients with bile duct cancer, according to results of a patient trial. Bile duct cancer is rare, treatment options are limited, and the survival rates are low.

The trial also suggests that a wider group of breast cancer patients—those with HER2-mutated breast cancer—could be treated with these drugs.

In the trial, researchers used a combination of tucatinib and trastuzumab to treat patients with a variety of different tumors, all of which had signs of changes to a protein called human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2).

The phase II trial included 217 patients from Europe, the U.S., Japan and South Korea with various different types of tumors that either had unusually high levels of HER2 expression or alterations in HER2. Despite previous treatment, all the patients had tumors that had spread within the body (metastatic cancer).

Patients on the trial received 21-day cycles of tucatinib tablets twice every day and trastuzumab intravenously once every three weeks. Tucatinib and trastuzumab are drugs that have been designed to stop cancer cells from growing by targeting HER2.

Overall, patients in the trial had a 22.2% objective response rate (ORR). This is the proportion of patients whose cancer shrank. However, among the 30 patients with bile duct cancer who were taking part in the trial, the ORR was 46.7%.

A combination of tucatinib, trastuzumab and the chemotherapy drug capecitabine is already approved for patients who have metastatic breast cancer with high levels of HER2 expression (known as HER2-positive). In the new trial of tucatinib and trastuzumab without capecitabine, for patients with metastatic breast cancer with alterations in HER2 (known as HER2-mutated), the ORR was 41.9% (31 patients).

Dr. Nakamura said, "This chemotherapy-free combination was shown to be safe and well-tolerated.”

[ConservativeMind]

Depending on the cancer, there were up to a 46.7% of the people with the medicine that experienced tumor shrinkage.

[ConservativeMind]

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Bile duct cancer-or cholangiocarcinoma, it what claimed the life of Chicago Bears great Walter Payton.