Systematic reviewConcurrent administration of anti-HER2 therapy and radiotherapy: Systematic review
Section snippets
Search strategy
For this review, pre-clinical and clinical studies were identified through literature searches conducted from to January 1987 to December 2016. The search was performed using the National Library of Medicine (PubMed/MEDLINE), Excerpta Medical Database (EMBASE) and Cochrane database and only English written studies were selected. A research was performed using the following keywords “radiotherapy”, “irradiation”, “radiation”, “concurrent”, “concomitant” combined successively with each anti-HER2
Overexpression HER2, a radioresistance factor
In preclinical studies in vivo and in vitro, it is clearly identified that HER2-overexpression is a factor of radioresistance in breast cancer [23], [24], [25], [26]. An exogenously increase in HER2 levels in the MCF7 breast cancer cell line (which normally expresses low levels of HER2) by transfection (MCF7HER2) caused increased resistance of the cells to ionizing with increased clonogenic survival after radiation [23]. This radioresistance mechanisms are probably not all explored and complex.
Conclusion
HER2-positive cells have been demonstrated to have a radioresistant phenotype. In the presence of trastuzumab, lapatinib and T-DM1, HER2-positive cells may develop increased sensitivity to radiation, which may result in a more potent antitumor effect.
The main clinical trials investigating the potential synergistic effect of anti-HER2 therapy and radiotherapy have focused on trastuzumab and lapatinib. Concerning the trastuzumab, the prospective trials assessing this combination in breast cancer
Competing interests
All authors declare no conflict of interest.
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