While patients with breast cancers are not subjected to the adverse side effects of tamoxifen or trastuzumab if their tumors are negative for estrogen, progesterone or Her-2/Neu, neoadjuvant ionizing radiation with concurrent chemotherapeutic agents is administered almost universally to patients with stage II/III rectal cancers.
Surgical specimens from 145 patients with residual rectal cancer after preoperative CRT between January 2006 and January 2011 were used to evaluate HER2 status.