A systematic review of the medical literature by the esteemed Cochrane review and published inCochrane Database of Systematic Reviews determined that Herceptin (trastuzumab) is associated with a significant risk of cardiotoxicity.
The review did not discount the benefits of Herceptin, which has been tied to prolonged survival in women with HER2-positive early stage breast cancer. About twenty percent of women diagnosed with breast cancer have HER2-positive tumors.
Herceptin works because it is a selective treatment that targets the HER2 pathway in that subtype of breast cancer, and researchers are not discounting its efficacy. These patients otherwise have a poorer prognosis than patients with HER2-negative disease.
Unfortunately, according to Cochrane researchers, Herceptin also raises the risk in patients receiving it of congestive heart failure. It appears Herceptin can only be beneficial against the tumor when delivered for a specific amount of time, and it is this extended amount of time that leads to cardiotoxicity in some patients.
Source: MedPage Today
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