Dr. Shafaee on the PERSEPHONE Trial in Early-Stage HER2+ Breast Cancer

Maryam Nemati Shafaee, MD, assistant professor, Duncan Cancer Center, Lester & Sue Smith Breast Cancer, Baylor College of Medicine, discusses the PERSEPHONE trial in women with early-stage HER2-positive breast cancer.

In the PERSEPHONE trial, the investigators looked at disease-free survival in women with early-stage HER2-positive breast cancer who would need adjuvant trastuzumab (Herceptin). Twelve months of adjuvant trastuzumab was compared with 6 months of adjuvant trastuzumab to assess whether 9 doses was noninferior to 18 doses, says Shafaee.

The trial reported noninferiority with 6 months of adjuvant trastuzumab, which has a very high clinical impact, explains Shafaee. Shafaee recently saw a patient with mild cardiomyopathy who was being treated with adjuvant trastuzumab. The patient’s ejection fraction recovered, following 9 doses of trastuzumab. Following the results of the trial, they considered stopping therapy after 9 doses. Shafaee underscores that this is not yet included in the NCCN guidelines, so more data are needed before straying from the current standard 12 months of therapy.