Besides providing evidence that HER2/neu expression is no risk factor in ALL patients, our data demonstrates that HER2/neu can be a promising target for Trastuzumab therapy in the subset of ALL patients with the potential to improve disease outcome.
Considering only adult B-ALL patients (n=38), surface Her2/neu expression was associated with chemoresistance (50% versus 11%, p=0.03) suggesting that it could be a prognostic marker of poor clinical outcome in ALL.