The recommended dosing period for adjuvant trastuzumab (Herceptin) in HER-2-positive breast cancer is 1 year, with a short course of 6 months not demonstrating comparable efficacy and a 2-year course not yielding better prognostic benefit, so neither is recommended at this time.
Patients who did not receive trastuzumab on initial postoperative therapy and who are in a disease-free recurrence setting after the completion of adjuvant chemotherapy may still benefit from delayed-use (median delay 22.8 months) trastuzumab therapy.
Herceptin is an antineoplastic drug that is used primarily for the treatment of metastatic breast cancer and is normally given intravenously and must be administered while hospitalized and under the supervision of a physician.