Impact of Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor 2 (HER2) Low Status in Response to Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy in Early Breast Cancer

Introduction In clinical practice, there is a binary distinction between human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive and HER2-negative (HER2−) breast cancer (BC). However, within HER2− disease, there is significant heterogeneity. Particularly, HER2− tumors that express some level of HER2 by immunohistochemistry (IHC) score 1+ or 2+/in situ hybridization (ISH) non-amplified are currently defined as HER2-low. This subgroup has shown distinct biological features compared to HER2-zero (HER2-0) BC and additionally novel antibody-drug conjugate therapies have demonstrated a potential and promising activity in HER2-low BC population. This study aims to evaluate the impact of HER2-low status in response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) in HER2− BC being HER2-low and HER2-0 status. Materials and methods In a single institution, we retrospectively reviewed clinical and pathological data of HER2 early-stage BC patients treated with NACT following definitive surgery from January 2015 to December 2020. Tumors with HER2 IHC 0 were classified as HER2-0 and IHC score 1+ and 2+/ISH non-amplified as HER2-low. The primary objective was to evaluate the rate of pathological complete response (pCR) using the definition of ypT0/Tis ypN0 according to HER2-low and HER2-0 subgroups. Secondary objectives were to evaluate biological features between the two subgroups, disease-free survival (DFS), and overall survival (OS). Pearson chi-square, Fisher’s exact, and Mann-Whitney tests were performed. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to plot DFS and OS curves. A p-value of <0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results A total of 72 patients with HER2 BC were included with a median age at diagnosis of 52.5 years and a median follow-up time of 35.5 months. Of patients, 56.9% had HER2-low disease and 43.1% had HER2-0 disease. Significant differences between the two subgroups were detected regarding hormonal receptor status and proliferation grade (Ki67). In the HER2-low subgroup, 70% of tumors were luminal-like and 64.5% of HER2-0 patients had triple-negative BC (p = 0.03). There were statistically significant differences regarding estrogen (p = 0.00) and progesterone (p = 0.02) receptors. The median Ki67 rate was higher in the HER2-0 subset (mean rank = 43.9) compared to HER2-low (mean rank = 30.9) and this difference was statistically significant (p = 0.00). HER2-low patients presented more stage III tumors (65.9%) and HER2-0 patients were mainly stage II (61.3%), and this was statistically relevant (p = 0.03). The prevalence of other clinical and pathological features was comparable between both groups. HER2-low subgroup achieved lower pCR rates (14.6% vs. 29.0%) but this difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.15). Similarly, there was no difference between the two subgroups regarding DFS (p = 0.97) and OS (p = 0.35), although the data were immature. Conclusion As in prior studies, this study did not support a significant impact of HER2-low status on response to NACT in HER2− patients with early-stage BC. HER2-low patients had a lower pCR, which may suggest a worse response to classic chemotherapy regimen and may have clinical implications that should be further exploited. The prevalence of hormonal receptors in HER2-low tumors was consistent with previous data in the literature. Although retrospective, the data suggest that HER2-low tumors should be regarded as a distinct biological subtype and more research is warranted.