Dramatic Antitumor Activity of Nivolumab in Advanced HER2-Positive Lung Cancer

HER2 mutations are uncommon molecular mutations in nonesmall-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) (4%). Tyrosine kinase inhibitors, such as erlotinib or gefiti-nib, have demonstrated promising results in patients with advanced NSCLC who harbor epidermal growth factor receptor mutations. Human epidermal growth factor 2 (HER2/ERBB2/neu) is a member of the ERBB family of tyrosine kinase receptors, and is activated by homodimerisation or heterodimerisation with other ERBB receptors. It is possible that NSCLC patients with HER2 mutations could benefit from targeted therapy. There are some data on afatinib and trastuzumab activity in this subgroup of patients. There are no data on the efficacy of immunotherapy in patients harboring epidermal growth factor receptor or ERB2 mutations. The results of CheckMate 057 suggested that, among patients harboring druggable mutations, better outcomes were achieved with docetaxel treatment than with nivolumab (84 patients). We report the first case of a patient with a HER2 mutation treated with nivolumab: this case suggests that nivolumab has strong activity even in patients with targeting biomarkers, in particular with advanced HER2-positive lung cancer. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.