Immunotherapy as a partner for HER2-directed therapies

ABSTRACT Introduction: Existing HER2-targeted therapies modulate the tumor microenvironment and the immunologic response cancer in a favorable way. While these therapies have made dramatic improvements in the treatment and prognosis of HER2-overexpressing malignancies, additional treatment options are still needed. Areas covered: This review covers the immunomodulatory effects of approved HER2-targeted therapies. We discuss the preclinical data that demonstrate an additive effect of the combination of trastuzumab or other HER2-targeting agents with immunomodulatory drugs. Finally, we report the initial studies on the combination of HER2-targeted agents together with immune checkpoint inhibitors or cancer vaccines in breast cancer. Expert opinion: Preclinical data suggest a synergistic effect of HER2-targeted therapy together with both checkpoint inhibitor and cancer vaccine immunotherapy. Results from initial trials with PD-1/PD-L1-blocking therapy together with HER2-targeted therapy have been negative, but responses were seen in patients with PD-L1+ breast cancer. Trastuzumab together with HER2-targeted cancer vaccination has shown benefits in triple negative breast cancer. Further trials are necessary and warranted to confirm the benefit of these combinations.

• Publication year

  2021

• Venue

  Expert Review of Anticancer Therapy

• Publication date

  2021-03-05

• Fields of study

  Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1080/14737140.2021.1894932PMID 33666116
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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