Dr Sara Tolaney speaks to ecancer at the 2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium about the ATEMPT randomized phase II study of adjuvant trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1) vs paclitaxel in combination with trastuzumab (TH) for stage I HER2-positive breast cancer.

The study follows on from the APT trial, which demonstrated favourable outcomes from treating HER2-positive breast cancer patients with adjuvant paclitaxel and trastuzumab. Dr Tolaney explains that the hoped to find a less toxic treatment option for this patient population.

She reports that the study met the disease-free survival endpoint and, while the clinically-relevant toxicity was the same in both arms, the toxicity profiles did differ.

Dr Tolaney says that the next step is to try a shorter duration of T-DM1 before continuing with trastuzumab, and also discusses the financial toxicity of the treatment.