# Barbara Bradfield

Source: https://onco.cc/people/barbara-bradfield/  
OnCo record `barbara-bradfield` (Person). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

In 1992 she was the first patient with recurrent HER2-positive breast cancer to be treated with the antibody that became Herceptin, in Dennis Slamon's trial at UCLA. She became its first long-term survivor.

## Summary

Barbara Bradfield had HER2-positive breast cancer that had recurred and spread when, in 1992, Dennis Slamon at UCLA asked her to join the first clinical trial of the humanised anti-HER2 antibody, later trastuzumab. She initially declined further treatment, then agreed; her disease responded and did not return. Her case, told in Robert Bazell's book Her-2 and dramatised in the 2008 film Living Proof, gave the programme evidence at a moment when its future inside Genentech was uncertain. Trastuzumab was approved by the FDA in 1998 for metastatic HER2-positive disease and, after the adjuvant trials of 2005, for early disease, changing a subtype once regarded as among the worst into one of the more treatable. She remained a public voice for the trial participants whose consent made the drug possible.

## Fields

- Kind: Person
- Last checked: 2026-09-09
- Tags: hero; patient
- Role: First long-term survivor of the trastuzumab trials
- Specialisms: HER2-positive breast cancer; Clinical trial participation

## Sources

- Living Proof (2008 film): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Proof_(2008_film)
- Dennis Slamon (Wikipedia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Slamon

## Connected records

- cancers: [HER2-positive breast cancer](https://onco.cc/cancers/breast-her2-positive/)
- technologies: [Monoclonal antibodies](https://onco.cc/technologies/monoclonal-antibody/)
- targets: [HER2](https://onco.cc/targets/her2/)
- drugs: [Trastuzumab](https://onco.cc/drugs/trastuzumab/)
- institutions: [UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center](https://onco.cc/institutions/ucla-jonsson/)
- trials: [HERA, NSABP B-31 & NCCTG N9831 (adjuvant trastuzumab)](https://onco.cc/trials/hera-b31-n9831/)
- people: [Dennis J. Slamon](https://onco.cc/people/dennis-slamon/)
- bottlenecks: [The valley of death between lab and product](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-translational-valley/), [Trials enrol too few, too slowly](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-trial-enrolment/)

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JSON: https://onco.cc/api/v1/entities/barbara-bradfield.json