Liu YZ, Jiang H, Zhao YH, Zhang Q, Hao SC, Bao LP, Wu W, Jia ZB, Jiang HC. Severe tinnitus and migraine headache in a 37-year-old woman treated with trastuzumab for breast cancer: A case report. World J Clin Cases 2022; 10(8): 2491-2496 [PMID: 35434062 DOI: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i8.2491]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Yong-Zhi Liu, PhD, Chief Doctor, Department of Breast Surgery, General Hospital of Benxi Iron & Steel Industry Group of Liaoning Health Industry Group, No. 29 Benxi Renmin Road, Benxi 117000, Liaoning Province, China. jackdemi@163.com
Research Domain of This Article
Oncology
Article-Type of This Article
Case Report
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Yong-Zhi Liu, Hai Jiang, Yong-Hua Zhao, Qi Zhang, Shi-Chao Hao, Li-Ping Bao, Wei Wu, Zhao-Bo Jia, Hui-Chuan Jiang, Department of Breast Surgery, General Hospital of Benxi Iron & Steel Industry Group of Liaoning Health Industry Group, Benxi 117000, Liaoning Province, China
Author contributions: Liu YZ made contribution to treating the patient, collecting data and writing the article; Jiang H, Zhao YH, Zhang Q, Hao SC, Bao LP, Wu W, Jia ZB, Jiang HC made contribution to treating the patient.
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: The authors have read the CARE Checklist (2016), and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CARE Checklist (2016).
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Yong-Zhi Liu, PhD, Chief Doctor, Department of Breast Surgery, General Hospital of Benxi Iron & Steel Industry Group of Liaoning Health Industry Group, No. 29 Benxi Renmin Road, Benxi 117000, Liaoning Province, China. jackdemi@163.com
Received: July 13, 2021 Peer-review started: July 13, 2021 First decision: September 28, 2021 Revised: October 9, 2021 Accepted: January 29, 2022 Article in press: January 29, 2022 Published online: March 16, 2022
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Trastuzumab is a generally safe agent prescribed in the systemic treatment of breast cancer. Tinnitus is not a currently known adverse event related to trastuzumab. Here, we describe a rare case of severe tinnitus and a migraine headache induced by trastuzumab used for adjuvant therapy.
CASE SUMMARY
A 37-year-old woman was diagnosed with hormone receptor-positive and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-positive breast cancer. After surgery, she was treated with four cycles of epirubicin and cyclophosphamide; she then received docetaxel and a loading dose of trastuzumab plus pertuzumab. Less than half an hour after trastuzumab infusion, the patient complained of severe tinnitus and left-sided migraine headache. Trastuzumab monotherapy was discontinued immediately, and symptoms disappeared after 10 min. Trastuzumab was readministered, and severe tinnitus and migraine headache recurred. Trastuzumab was stopped, and severe tinnitus diminished after 10 min. Pertuzumab and docetaxel therapy was then administered, and no adverse events were observed. Subsequent infusions of trastuzumab every three weeks did not show the same symptoms.
CONCLUSION
Although trastuzumab is well-tolerated in most patients, we should pay attention to the risk of severe tinnitus and migraine.
Core Tip: Trastuzumab is an important treatment for human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-positive breast cancer and is generally well-tolerated, although both acute and subacute adverse events have been reported. Here, we report a rare case of severe tinnitus and migraine induced by trastuzumab used for adjuvant therapy which may help guide future clinical treatment.
