Two Patients with Brain Metastases of HER2-positive Breast Cancer who Survived for more than 8 Years with Multimodal Therapy

Abstract

The cases of two patients with brain metastases of HER2-positive breast cancer who have survived long-term as a result of multimodal therapy are presented. Case 1 was a 59-year-old woman who presented with a mass in the right breast and was diagnosed with multiple bone metastases of HER2-positive breast cancer. She underwent drug treatment and radiotherapy, but developed multiple brain metastases two years later. She underwent surgery followed by gamma-knife treatment and drug therapy for the metastatic brain tumors, and is still surviving 10 years after the initial diagnosis. Case 2 was a 69-year-old woman who presented with truncal ataxia and was diagnosed with brain metastases of HER2-positive breast cancer. She underwent surgery followed by gamma-knife treatment and drug therapy for the metastatic brain tumors, after which the disease stabilized. In the subsequent 8 years she has remained recurrence-free with no further treatment, and she has survived for a total of 13 years since the initial diagnosis. The prognosis for patients with brain metastases of HER2-positive breast cancer is extremely poor, and treatment is frequently unsuccessful. In many cases, once brain metastases have developed the aim of treatment is to control symptoms or improve quality of life, but multimodal therapy may sometimes enable long-term survival.