Clinical, pathological, and PAM50 gene expression features of HER2-low breast cancer
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Open Access
- 4 January 2021
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in npj Breast Cancer
- Vol. 7 (1), 1-13
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41523-020-00208-2
Abstract
Novel antibody-drug conjugates against HER2 are showing high activity in HER2-negative breast cancer (BC) with low HER2 expression (i.e., 1+ or 2+ and lack of ERBB2 amplification). However, the clinical and molecular features of HER2-low BC are yet to be elucidated. Here, we collected retrospective clinicopathological and PAM50 data from 3,689 patients with HER2-negative disease and made the following observations. First, the proportion of HER2-low was higher in HR-positive disease (65.4%) than triple-negative BC (TNBC, 36.6%). Second, within HR-positive disease, ERBB2 and luminal-related genes were more expressed in HER2-low than HER2 0. In contrast, no gene was found differentially expressed in TNBC according to HER2 expression. Third, within HER2-low, ERBB2 levels were higher in HR-positive disease than TNBC. Fourth, HER2-low was not associated with overall survival in HR-positive disease and TNBC. Finally, the reproducibility of HER2-low among pathologists was suboptimal. This study emphasizes the large biological heterogeneity of HER2-low BC, and the need to implement reproducible and sensitive assays to measure low HER2 expression.Keywords
Funding Information
- Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness | Instituto de Salud Carlos III (PI16/00904)
- Breast Cancer Now (2018NOVPCC1294)
- PhD4MD
- Sociedad Española de Oncología Médica
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