The Role of HER-3 Expression in the Prediction of Clinical Outcome for Advanced Colorectal Cancer Patients Receiving

The content of this article has been reviewed by independent peer reviewers to ensure that it is balanced, objective, and free from commercial bias. No financial relationships relevant to the content of this article have been disclosed by the authors or independent peer reviewers. Preclinical data suggested that, in the presence of hu-man epidermal growth factor receptor (HER)-3–al-tered activation, colorectal cancer cells may escape anti–epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-medi-ated cell death. HER-3 overexpression may then repre-sent a key factor for resistance to anti-EGFR antibodies in colorectal cancer. The aim of our analysis was to in-vestigate a possible correlation between HER-3 ex-pression and clinical outcome in wild-type K-RAS advanced colorectal cancer patients receiving cetux-imab and irinotecan. We retrospectively analyzed immunoreactivity for HER-3 in wild-type K-RAS advanced colorectal cancer patients receiving irinotecan and cetuximab. Eighty-four advanced wild-type K-RAS colorectal cancer patients were available for HER-3 analysis. Forty patients (48%) had a HER-3 colorectal tumor, whereas the remaining 44 cases (52%) were deeme