Current medical research and opinion
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Trastuzumab, an anti-HER2 humanized monoclonal antibody, is the standard treatment for both early and metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer. In addition to other chemotherapeutic agents, trastuzumab significantly improves response rate and survival in HER2-positive early and metastatic breast cancer. Although it is well known that trastuzumab therapy is closely associated with both symptomatic and asymptomatic cardiotoxicity, less is known about novel HER2-targeted therapies. The aim of this review is to discuss the cardiac safety data from recent studies of novel anti-HER2 drugs other than trastuzumab. ⋯ Although cardiac toxicity has been reported as an adverse event for novel HER2-targeted therapies, cardiac dysfunction rate of the novel HER2-targeted therapies is significantly lower than the trastuzumab and combination of these agents with trastuzumab did not significantly increase the cardiac adverse events.