HER2 is a ligand-less member of the human epidermal growth factor receptor or ErbB family of tyrosine kinases. In normal biological systems, HER2 functions as a co-receptor for a multitude of epidermal growth factor-like ligands that bind and activate other HER family members. HER2 overexpression is observed in a number of human adenocarcinomas and results in constitutive HER2 activation. Speci...

Many breast cancer patients with HER2 overexpression do not respond to initial therapy with trastuzumab (Herceptin), and the vast majority of those who initially respond to the agent develop resistance to treatment within 1 year. This review will discuss several molecular mechanisms that can lead to the development of trastuzumab resistance, including loss of PTEN, activation of alternative pat...

Trastuzumab (Herceptin) has dramatically changed the treatment of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive breast cancer. A phase III trial of firstline trastuzumab with various chemotherapy regimens compared with chemotherapy alone demonstrated a significant improvement in survival (25.1 vs 20.3 months) and overall response (50% vs 32%).1 This study resulted in the approval of ...

Determining the HER2 status of breast carcinomas is a prerequisite for the use of the monoclonal antibody trastuzumab (Herceptin®), which has recently been licensed for the treatment of metastatic disease. This necessitates a test based on archival material. The preferred analyses are immunohistochemistry with fluorescent in situ hybridisation (FISH) as a follow up test for ambiguous results. G...

dverse effects of pharmacotherapeutics in patients rarely ead to novel therapies in animal models of disease. In this ssue of the Journal, however, Liu et al. (1) provide a emarkable case of such “bedside-to-bench” research: they emonstrate that neuregulin-1 therapy substantially mitiates heart failure in infarct-, viral-, anthracycline-, nd pacing-induced models that employ rodents and dogs— x...

Introduction MRI is a high spatial resolution non-invasive technique but it has low specificity for targeting explicit pathologies. In an effort to improve specificity, MRI contrast agents with strong paramagnetic properties such as Gadolinium have been developed. However recent reports of suspected deaths associated with gadolinium administration have severely limited their use [1-2]. Iron oxi...