The Lancet publishes results of the PHERGain clinical study on breast cancer

Barcelona, April 4 (EFE) - The medical specialty journal The Lancet has published the results of the PHERGain clinical trial, conducted by MEDSIR, showing that one-third of patients with localized HER2-positive breast cancer could be cured without the need for chemotherapy.

The study highlighted that the early assessment of the response to exclusive preoperative treatment without chemotherapy, using trastuzumab and pertuzumab and employing PET-CT scans, was able to identify around 40% of such patients who achieved a complete pathological response.

MEDSIR's co-founder and senior scientific leader, Dr. Javier Cortés, stressed the significance of the publication in The Lancet, noting its practical implications for patient well-being.

The research, led by Dr. Cortés along with Drs. Antonio Llombart-Cussac and José Pérez, involved investigators from 45 centers across seven European countries and included a total of 356 patients with localized HER2-positive breast cancer.

Of these, 94.8% of the patients who followed the adaptive therapeutic strategy, whether they received chemotherapy or not, remained cancer-free three years after undergoing surgery following treatment. This percentage is even higher (96.4%) among patients who did not require chemotherapy, as only one experienced a local relapse.

"We have seen that we can offer less treatment to a group of patients who have always required chemotherapy, which optimizes the patients' quality of life," Cortés told EFE in an interview, adding that this strategy does not compromise cure rates.

Dr. Cortés highlighted the benefits of precision medicine and adaptive clinical trials, which focus on the individual patient, noting, "each patient and each disease is unique."

SHOT LIST: SOUND BITES OF MEDSIR CO-FOUNDER AND SENIOR SCIENTIFIC LEADER, DR. JAVIER CORTÉS.

FOOTAGE OF THE MEDSIR OFFICE IN BARCELONA.