Petrelli F, et al. - A systematic review was conducted to assess the efficacy of lapatinib (L), singly or in combination with capecitabine (C), as a treatment for HER-2+ brain metastases (BMs). As per findings, for HER-2/neu overexpression or amplification (HER-2+) breast cancer (BC) that had progressed in the brain, when local therapy has been performed or failed and re-irradiation was not feasible, researchers suggested considering the L + C combination due to its activity on BMs.

Methods

• PubMed, EMBASE, The Cochrane Library, SCOPUS, Web of Science, ClinicalTrials.gov, World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP), and the European Union Clinical Trials Register were searched for studies reporting data on L, singly or in combination with C, for the treatment of HER-2+ BC with BMs.
• Overall response rate (ORR) and disease control rate (DCR) were assessed as the primary end-points.
• Secondary end-points included progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS).
• In accordance to a fixed or random effect model, data were pooled using number of events/number of evaluable patients.

Results

• The present meta-analysis included 12 studies, for a total of 799 patients with BMs.
• Findings revealed the pooled overall response rate (ORR) of 21.4% (95% CI 11.7–35.9).
• In this study, after exclusion of patients that received L alone, ORR reached 29.2% (95% CI 18.5–42.7).
• The pooled median PFS and OS were 4.1 (95% CI 3.1–6.7) and 11.2 (95% CI 8.9–14.1) months, respectively.