HER2 in focus—gastric cancer

Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) was the first molecule targeted by monoclonal antibodies in solid disease. Interestingly, the first patients with disseminated HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer who received the anti-HER2 drug trastuzumab in phase I trials in the early 1990s are still alive (Siddhartha Mukharjee, The Emperor of All Maladies, A Biography of Cancer, Scribner, New York, NY, USA). This opened the door for several investigations to identify other biomarkers for targeted therapies, which significantly changed the treatment armamentarium of several types of cancer. …