New first treatment for HER2-positive breast cancer holds back women’s cancers longer

If you or someone you love is facing advanced breast cancer, here is encouraging news. A new first treatment kept the disease from growing much longer than the current standard. It is one of the most promising steps yet in the fight against women’s cancers.

In a large trial, about 6 in 10 people on the new treatment had no cancer growth after two years. On the standard treatment, it was about 3 in 10.

How the study worked

This was a phase 3 trial, the kind researchers use to compare a new treatment head to head with the standard. It enrolled 885 people with HER2-positive advanced breast cancer at several centers in China. HER2 is a protein that some breast cancers have in large amounts. By the flip of a coin, so to speak, 445 people got the new treatment and 440 got the usual one. Specialists who did not know who got what judged whether the cancer had grown. People were followed for a median of 21.0 months. The results were published Oct. 24, 2026, in the New England Journal of Medicine. This is an early look at the data, and everyone was treated in China, so researchers will keep following the group.

What they found

The new treatment is a drug called anbenitamab, paired with a form of the chemo drug docetaxel known as HB1801. The standard first treatment is docetaxel plus two antibodies, trastuzumab and pertuzumab, often called THP.

At 24 months, 58.5% of people on the new treatment were free of cancer growth. With THP, it was 34.4%. That is about 6 in 10 compared with about 3 in 10. The risk of the cancer growing or of death was cut by more than half.

The tumors also shrank more often. Tumors shrank in 87.6% of people on the new treatment, compared with 73.4% on THP.

As with most cancer drugs, there were side effects. Serious ones (grade 3 or higher) happened in 45.9% of people on the new treatment and 34.4% on THP. The most common was a drop in infection-fighting white blood cells, called neutrophils. It affected 13.1% on the new treatment and 8.4% on THP. Two people in each group had side effects that led to death.

What is a bispecific antibody?

An antibody is a protein that latches onto a target. Most antibodies grab one spot. A bispecific antibody, like anbenitamab, grabs HER2 in two different spots at once. That firmer grip may be part of why it worked so well here.

What you can do today

If you or someone close to you has HER2-positive advanced breast cancer, write down three questions for the next oncology visit: What are my first treatment options? Are there clinical trials of newer HER2 drugs near me? How would you watch my blood counts during treatment? You can also search for trials at ClinicalTrials.gov, the free US government site. This study’s number is NCT05838066.