Marginal Corneal Infiltration Following Treatment for Metastatic Breast Cancer with Triple Chemotherapy of Trastuzumab, Pertuzumab & Docetaxel

ABSTRACT

Purpose

To report a case of bilateral marginal corneal infiltration upon treatment with trastuzumab, pertuzumab, and docetaxel via novel proposed mechanisms.

Case description

A patient, diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer and positive for human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) with high Ki67, presented with bilateral severe marginal corneal infiltration upon undergoing first cycle of triple chemotherapy: trastuzumab, pertuzumab, and docetaxel. Treatment with topical corticosteroids and antibiotics was unsuccessful and was replaced by allogeneic serum eye drops (SED). The case improved significantly 10 days upon starting allogeneic SED.

Conclusions

We propose that trastuzumab, pertuzumab, and docetaxel suppress HER2 and Ki67 in the cornea and lacrimal gland. To the best of our knowledge, our report is the first to highlight the potential impact of this triple chemotherapy on the lacrimal gland and cornea and the first to highlight the proposed role of Ki67 suppression in damaging corneal integrity.

KEYWORDS:

• Allogeneic
• cornea
• docetaxel
• HER2
• infiltration
• KI67
• lacrimal
• marginal
• Pertuzumab
• serum
• trastuzumab

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.