Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2023 Aug 14:15:605-616.
doi: 10.2147/BCTT.S366122. eCollection 2023.

HER2-Low Breast Cancer: Current Landscape and Future Prospects

Yelena Shirman  1 , Shlomit Lubovsky  1 , Ayelet Shai  1
Affiliations
Review

HER2-Low Breast Cancer: Current Landscape and Future Prospects

Yelena Shirman et al. Breast Cancer (Dove Med Press). .

Abstract

More than 50% of breast cancers are currently defined as "Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) low breast cancer (BC)", with HER2 immunohistochemistry (IHC) scores of +1 or +2 with a negative fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) test. In most studies that compared the clinical and biological characteristics of HER2-low BC with HER2-negative BC, HER2-low was not associated with unique clinical and molecular characteristics, and it seems that the importance of HER2 in these tumors is being a docking site for the antibody portion of antibody drug conjugates (ADCs). Current pathological methods may underestimate the proportion of BCs that express low levels of HER2 due to analytical limitations and tumor heterogeneity. In this review we summarize and contextualize the most recent literature on HER2-low breast cancers, including clinical and translational studies We also review the challenges of assessing low HER2 expression in BC and discuss the current and future therapeutic landscape for these tumors.

Keywords: ERBB2 low; HER2 targeted therapy; HER2-low; T-DXd; breast cancer; trastuzumab; trastuzumab-deruxtecan.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

AS reports receiving travel funds and honoraria from AstraZeneca. YS and SL report no conflicts of interest in this work.

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Alroy I, Yarden Y. Biochemistry of HER2 oncogenesis in breast cancer. Breast Dis. 2000;11(1):31–48. doi:10.3233/BD-1999-11104 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Rubin I, Yarden Y. The basic biology of HER2. Ann Oncol. 2001;12(SUPPL. 1). doi:10.1093/ANNONC/12.SUPPL_1.S3 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Slamon DJ, Clark GM, Wong SG, Levin WJ, Ullrich A, McGuire WL. Human breast cancer: correlation of relapse and survival with amplification of the HER-2/neu oncogene. Science. 1987;235(4785):182–191. doi:10.1126/SCIENCE.3798106 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Seshadri R, Firgaira FA, Horsfall DJ, McCaul K, Setlur V, Kitchen P. Clinical significance of HER-2/neu oncogene amplification in primary breast cancer. The South Australian Breast Cancer Study Group. J Clin Oncol. 1993;11(10):1936–1942. doi:10.1200/JCO.1993.11.10.1936 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Slamon DJ, Leyland-Jones B, Shak S, et al. Use of chemotherapy plus a monoclonal antibody against HER2 for metastatic breast cancer that overexpresses HER2. N Engl J Med. 2001;344(11):783–792. doi:10.1056/NEJM200103153441101 - DOI - PubMed