ERBB2 and breast cancer: The reported high variability of pCR rates in response to neoadjuvant trastuzumab treatment, together with scanty literature data in current clinical practice (Chumsri et al. 2010; Shimizu et al. 2009; Wang et al. 2010; Horiguchi et al. 2011), prompted us to investigate whether the effectiveness of neoadjuvant trastuzumab in association with chemotherapy in ‘real world’ treatment of HER2+ breast cancer patients is comparable to that observed in randomized controlled trials (RCTs).