Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2020. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Oncol. Mar 24, 2020; 11(3): 143-151
Published online Mar 24, 2020. doi: 10.5306/wjco.v11.i3.143
Efficacy, patterns of use and cost of Pertuzumab in the treatment of HER2+ metastatic breast cancer in Singapore: The National Cancer Centre Singapore experience
Sylwan Rahardja, Ryan Ying Cong Tan, Rehena Sultana, Fun Loon Leong, Elaine Hsuen Lim
Sylwan Rahardja, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore 119228, Singapore
Ryan Ying Cong Tan, Fun Loon Leong, Elaine Hsuen Lim, National Cancer Centre Singapore, Singapore 169610, Singapore
Rehena Sultana, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore 169857, Singapore
Author contributions: Rahardja S, Tan RYC and Lim EH designed the research; Rahardja S, Tan RYC, Sultana R and Leong FL performed the research; Rahardja S, Tan RYC, and Sultana R analyzed the data; Rahardja S, Tan RYC, and Lim EH wrote the paper.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board at SingHealth CIRB B.
Informed consent statement: Institutional review board has granted waiver of informed consent based on ethical considerations.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There is no conflict of interest associated with any of the senior author or other coauthors who have contributed their effort in the manuscript. All the authors have no conflict of interest related to the manuscript.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Sylwan Rahardja, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, 1E Kent Ridge Road, Singapore 119228, Singapore. sylwanrahardja@u.nus.edu
Received: November 1, 2019
Peer-review started: November 1, 2019
First decision: November 21, 2019
Revised: February 4, 2020
Accepted: February 23, 2020
Article in press: February 23, 2020
Published online: March 24, 2020
Processing time: 136 Days and 18.3 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Pertuzumab is a humanized anti-human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) monoclonal antibody found in a Phase III clinical trial to significantly improve median survival in HER2 positive metastatic breast cancer when used in combination with a taxane and Trastuzumab, and its clinical efficacy has transformed the therapeutic landscape of HER2-positive breast cancer. In our study, there was a statistically significant difference in the median overall survival between Pertuzumab and non-Pertuzumab groups [51.5 (95%CI: 35.8–60.0) vs 32.9 (95%CI: 28.1–37.5) mo; P = 0.0128] while the rate of grade 3 cardiotoxicity was low (4.88%). However, costs remain high.