Study Of Lapatinib In Patients With Relapsed Or Refractory Inflammatory Breast Cancer

This Phase II open label, multicenter study is designed to evaluate the efficacy, safety, and pharmacodynamic effects of oral lapatinib administered as a single agent therapy to patients with relapsed or refractory inflammatory breast cancer. Eligible patients must have a diagnosis of inflammatory breast cancer based on clinicopathologic criteria, tumor that is readily accessible for biopsy, and must have previously received treatment with an anthracycline and taxane-containing regimen (30 patients) plus trastuzumab (90 patients). Patients enrolled must have tumors that overexpress ErbB2, with or without co-expression of ErbB1. The primary objective for this study is to evaluate the objective response rate (defined as complete response plus partial response). Secondary objectives are to evaluate clinical benefit including quality of life parameters, progression-free survival, overall survival, time-to-response, response duration, safety and tolerability, pharmacodynamic effects on intracellular mediators that regulate tumor cell growth and survival, as well as effects on proteomic profile, and circulating levels of extracellular domains of ErbB1 and ErbB2 in peripheral blood.