How trastuzumab became a major part of our breast cancer treatment arsenal

摘要

IN LESS than 15 years, the anti-human epidermal growth factor 2 monoclonal antibody trastuzumab (Herceptin) has transformed HER2-positive (HER2+) breast cancer from the hardest to cure type of the disease to the one with the best options for treatment. Now routinely used in both metastatic and early HER2+ breast cancer, trastuzumab has become part of the breast cancer landscape, but its journey from laboratory to clinic was not easy. Peter Barrett-Lee, whose MD thesis in the mid 1980s focused on growth factor expression in breast cancer, recalls that there were plenty of critics of the new science.