The HER2 (human epidermal growth factor receptor 2) gene is part of a family of genes that play roles in regulating cell growth. The protein it makes is a tyrosine kinase growth factor receptor that a number of normal tissues express and which probably has a role in normal cell function, regulating growth and proliferation.
Breast cancers with HER2 mutations respond to the drug neratinib, but the responses are variable and often not durable.
Researchers at University of California San Diego and University of California San Francisco have mapped out how hundreds of mutations involved in two types of cancer affect the activity of discrete groups of proteins that are the ultimate actors behind the disease.
Many people across the globe are working hard to get the better of cancer; however cancer is always working too. Cancer cells can become resistant to the methods that have been adopted to kill them, so identifying drugs that act in different ways is part of the push to outsmart this ubiquitous disease
UT Southwestern Simmons Cancer Center researchers have discovered a two-drug combo that halts the growth of cancer cells that carry HER2 mutations.
The antibody-drug conjugate ado-trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1) has promising activity in HER2 amplified salivary gland tumors, according to data published in the Annals of Oncology.
Physicians who treat patients with triple negative breast cancer have two new ways to predict which patients may benefit most from the well-established post-surgery treatment known as AC chemotherapy, short for adjuvant doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide.
In an effort to further individualize therapy and avoid over-treating patients, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center report a new study using PET scans has identified a biomarker that may accurately predict which patients with one type of HER2-positive breast cancer might best benefit from standalone HER2-targeted agents, without the need for standard chemotherapy.
An antibody that binds simultaneously to two distinct regions of the HER2 receptor to block the growth of cancer cells has shown promising signs of anti-tumor activity in a number of cancers including those of the gullet (esophagus), stomach and bowel.
The HER2 gene is a well-known driver of breast cancer, where changes in this gene are found in about 1-in-5 cases of the disease. HER2 also contributes to about 3 percent of lung cancers, representing about 6,500 patients per year.
In cancer cells, genetic errors wreak havoc. Misspelled genes, as well as structural variations -- larger-scale rearrangements of DNA that can encompass large chunks of chromosomes -- disturb carefully balanced mechanisms that have evolved to regulate cell growth.
People with tough-to-treat triple negative breast cancer, whose tumors also don't allow for double-strand DNA repair, fare better when treated with a common adjuvant breast cancer chemotherapy combination, according to results from a SWOG clinical trial.
Mount Sinai researchers have discovered that normal immune cells called macrophages, which reside in healthy breast tissue surrounding milk ducts, play a major role in helping early breast cancer cells leave the breast for other parts of the body, potentially creating metastasis before a tumor has even developed, according to a study published in Nature Communications.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Ogivri (trastuzumab-dkst) as a biosimilar to Herceptin (trastuzumab) for the treatment of patients with breast or metastatic stomach cancer (gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma) whose tumors overexpress the HER2 gene (HER2+).
A new measurement standard developed by the National Institute of Standards of Technology has been used successfully by the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research to check the performance of next-generation DNA-sequencing technologies for evaluating gene variations associated with an increased risk of breast cancer.
A team of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine cancer researchers has uncovered one way certain tumors resist vital medication.
Changes to HER2 testing guidelines for breast cancer in 2013 significantly increased the number of patients who test HER2-positive, according to a new study by Mayo Clinic researchers published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Researchers at the University of Rochester Wilmot Cancer Institute discovered something simple and inexpensive to reduce neuropathy in hands and feet due to chemotherapy--exercise.
A joint study by University of Colorado Cancer Center and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center published in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology shows two distinct causes of HER2 activation in lung cancer: mutation of the gene and amplification of the gene.
Results of a new laboratory study by Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center researchers suggests that some rare “missense” mutations in the HER2 gene are apparently not — on their own — capable of causing breast cancer growth or spread.
Clinical studies show that new drugs that target malignant cells of HER2-positive breast cancer, such as Pertuzumab and Trastuzumab Emtansine (T-DM1), increase life expectancy in patients with advanced breast cancer.