Assenat E, Mineur L, Mollevi C, et al. - To evaluate the efficacy as well as the tolerance of gemcitabine, trastuzumab plus erlotinib as first‐line therapy of metastatic pancreatic cancer, researchers undertook this phase II multicenter study. To ascertain the predictive value of both EGFR/HER2 expression and KRAS mutational status, ancillary study was performed. Participants were 63 patients from four centers, with median age of 62 years (35‐77), 59.7% men. A partial tumor response in 11 patients (19%) and disease stabilization in 33 (56%) was observed. Median progression‐free survival (PFS) and median overall survival (OS) were identified to be 3.5 months and 7.9 months, respectively, following a median follow‐up of 23.3 months. A correlation of expression of EGFR and HER2 with PFS and OS was revealed in multivariate analysis; there was a correlation of HER2 expression with tumor response. Overall, findings demonstrated the effectiveness of this triplet combination in terms of disease control, PFS and OS, and this combination therapy was acceptable for safety.

This triplet combination is effective in terms of disease control, PFS and OS, and acceptable for safety.