At the recent European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress, results from the Destiny-12 clinical trial of Trastuzumab Deruxtecan in metastatic breast cancer were presented. The UCD Cancer Trials Cluster contributed more patients to this study than any other Irish site and our contribution has been marked by co-authorship for Professor Michaela Higgins in the academic article in Nature Medicine, published alongside the congress.

This important study confirmed very high response rates and good clinical outcomes provided by T-Dxd (trastuzumab deruxtecan) in the treatment of people with advanced HER2-positive breast cancer, particularly in patients with brain metastases.

HER2-positive breast cancer, a more aggressive subtype, accounts for around 15-20% of all breast cancer cases. Unfortunately, up to half of patients with advanced disease develop brain metastases, which significantly worsens their prognosis. This study, the DESTINY-12 clinical trial, is the largest prospective study to date focusing on the use of T-DXd in this patient group. The trial involved two groups of patients: one with brain metastases (263 patients) and another without brain metastases (241 patients). All participants had previously received at least one round of anti-HER2 therapy before starting the trial T-DXd treatment.