Cardiac toxicity with monoclonal antibodies therapy

Abstract

Breast cancers which overexpress the human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) proteins generally have poor prognosis. Trastuzumab is a monoclonal antibody which inhibits HER-2 activation and has been shown to be an effective therapy for women with breast cancers that overexpress HER2 proteins. The most important side effect of trastuzumab is cardiotoxicity. We report a patient with left ventricular dysfunction and pericardial effusion after treatment with pertuzumab and trastuzumab.

Keywords

• cancer therapy
• monoclonal antibodies
• cardiac toxicity
• pericardial effusion