Do you routinely check echocardiograms for patients getting HER2 directed therapy for metastatic breast cancer?   

I monitor LVEF with echocardiography at 3 months' intervals. My rationale is that changes in LVEF can then be addressed in real time in an attempt to prevent further cardiac decompensation, symptomatic cardiac events, and discontinuation of Her2 targeted therapy. We’re currently looking at pro...

I do not do routine echocardiograms in setting of metastatic breast cancer unless patients have symptoms of CHF. The benefits of herceptin outweighs small risk for asymptomatic drop in LVEF. 

I assess EF every 3 months on average, but it is not rigid. It is not an exact science, but there are times when you have to hold anti HER2 therapy to allow recovery of EF and it is not a good idea to let a patient get into frank heart failure which can happen.

For the first year i monitor every 3 months in women with metastatic cancer. However, now that we are seeing prolonged responses with her-2 targeted therapy alone, often i scale back to every 6 months or so when there has not been any change, and when there are no other cardiotoxic medications being...

There is very little data on screening among metastatic breast cancer patients. That is why it will be so important to enroll patients on the SWOG phase III trial - Evaluation of carvedilol vs No treatment in Prevention of Cardiac Dysfunction in Women with Metastatic HER-2+ Breast Cancer. In additi...