Dr. Ahmed on the Need for Multidisciplinary Care in HER2+ Breast Leptomeningeal Disease

Kamran A. Ahmed, MD, an assistant member in the Department of Radiation Oncology and the Department of Immunology at Moffitt Cancer Center, and an assistant professor in the Department of Oncologic Sciences at the University of South Florida, discusses the need for multidisciplinary care in patients with HER2-positive breast cancer and leptomeningeal disease.

Leptomeningeal disease poses significant challenges for patients with HER2-positive breast cancer in terms of disease management, says Ahmed. As such, patients require a multidisciplinary approach to treatment, Ahmed explains.

Often, these patients have poor prognoses and require management of their intracranial, as well as extracranial disease, Ahmed says. Therefore, patients should be under the care of medical oncologists, neuro-oncologists, and radiation oncologists, among others, explains Ahmed.

Notably, during the 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting, the study schema of an ongoing phase 1/2 trial (NCT04588545) evaluating a multidisciplinary treatment approach with radiation therapy followed by intrathecal trastuzumab (Herceptin) plus pertuzumab (Perjeta) was presented as an investigational option for patients with HER2-positive breast cancer and leptomeningeal disease, concludes Ahmed.