Safety and efficacy of adjuvant subcutaneous trastuzumab in human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-positive early breast cancer: Final results of the SafeHER study

AIM: To report the final results of the 5-year follow-up of the non-randomized SafeHER Phase III study (NCT01566721) describing the safety, tolerability, and efficacy of subcutaneous (SC) trastuzumab alone and in combination with concurrent or sequential chemotherapy. METHODS: Patients with human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive early breast cancer (EBC) with no prior anti-HER2 therapy were included. SC trastuzumab was administered every 3 weeks for 18 cycles as adjuvant therapy with or without chemotherapy (concurrent or sequential). The primary objective was overall safety and tolerability of SC trastuzumab; efficacy was a secondary objective. RESULTS: No new safety signals were observed during the final evaluation. The majority of adverse events (AEs) were grade 1 or 2 across the chemotherapy subgroups. Treatment discontinuation due to AEs was 5.1% for the intent-to-treat (ITT) population and similar for all chemotherapy subgroups. The overall disease-free survival (DFS) 5-year event-free rate in the ITT population (n = 2573) was 86.6% (95% CI, 85.2%–87.9%) with a median follow-up of 72 months. Based on chemotherapy timing, the no (n = 235), concurrent (n = 1533), and sequential (n = 805) chemotherapy subgroups had DFS 5-year event-free rates (95% CI) of 88.5% (83.4%–92.2%), 88.4% (86.6%–89.9%), and 82.6 (79.7%–85.2%), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The 5-year follow-up analysis of the SafeHER trial demonstrating that SC trastuzumab has an acceptable safety profile, including cardiac toxicity, and efficacy for the treatment of HER2-positive EBC with and without chemotherapy, corresponding with historical data with trastuzumab.