Medicines for HER2 positive metastatic breast cancer, February 2018
Page last updated: 22 August 2018
Drug utilisation sub-committee (DUSC)
February 2018
Abstract
Purpose
To compare the predicted and actual utilisation of trastuzumab, trastuzumab emtansine (T‑DM1) and pertuzumab for the treatment of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) positive metastatic breast cancer.
Current PBS restriction (abridged)
Metastatic (Stage IV) HER2 positive breast cancer. The details of the restrictions vary across the three medicines. See the “Restriction” section on page 6 for details.
Key Findings
- Larger numbers of patients used pertuzumab and trastuzumab than expected in both the first two years.
- The use of pertuzumab was for a greater number of cycles than anticipated in the submission. [REDACTED]% of patients had more than [REDACTED] cycles of treatment ([REDACTED]).
- Lower numbers of patients used T-DM1 than predicted. A contributing factor could be patients staying on pertuzumab longer than expected and so not progressing to T-DM1.
Full Report
