Real-world data on the efficacy and safety of trastuzumab emtansine in patients with metastatic breast cancer previously treated with pertuzumab: Turkish oncology group multicenter study

We aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of trastuzumab emtansine in patients with metastatic breast cancer previously treated with pertuzumab plus trastuzumab and taxane. We reviewed the medical records of patients who were diagnosed with Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor 2 (HER-2) positive metastatic breast cancer and received pertuzumab and then TDM-1 between January 2014 and January 2021 from twenty- five cancer centers. The Kaplan- Meier method estimated progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS). Additionally, objective response rate (ORR), clinical benefit rate (CBR), and safety were evaluated. One hundred fifty-three patients were included,79.1% of the patients received TDM-1 in the second line, 90.8% had visceral metastasis, and 30.7% had central nervous system involvement. The PFS and OS of TDM-1 were evaluated according to the number of previous lines (on the 2nd line or more than two lines) metastatic sites (visceral and non-visceral) and the presence of central nervous metastasis. In TDM-1 therapy, PFS in second line therapy was ten months (95% CI: 7.7 − 12.2); this was statistically higher than later-line PFS, which was six months (95% CI: 3.3 to 8.6) (p = 0.004). The median OS time was 25 months (95% CI: 21.0 to 28.9) in patients treated with TDM-1 in the second line and 19 months (95% CI: 12.3 to 25.6) in patients who received later than the second line(p = 0.175). There were no significant differences in PFS time of patients with and without visceral and central nervous metastases. Our study showed that TDM-1 was also effective in patients using pertuzumab, contributes significantly to PFS when used in the second line compared to its use in the later line, and does not make any difference in OS.