These results were considered promising for ALTTO and the adjuvant setting. However, the 2014 ALTTO findings did not confirm the predicted benefit of using both anti-HER2 therapies (trastuzumab plus lapatinib).
Despite its unexpected results, the ALTTO trial can be considered to be a landmark study. Not only did this large collaboration trial answer important questions about the adjuvant treatment of women with HER2-positive breast cancer – namely, the findings confirmed that the standard adjuvant treatment for early stage HER2-positive breast cancer should remain trastuzumab in combination with chemotherapy – but the data and samples collected are very valuable for the conduct of promising translational research.