Drug slashes aggressive breast cancer recurrence rate

<body leftmargin="0" bgcolor="#000060" text="#FFFFFF" link="#FFFF00" vlink="#FF9900"> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="95%" height="1"> <tr> <center> <td valign="top" width="33%" height="33"> <b> <p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="5">Drug slashes aggressive breast cancer recurrence rate</font></p> </b> <p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="1">Oct. 22, 2005<br> Special to World Science<br> </font> <b><font size="2" face="Arial"><br> A drug known as trastuzumab, or Herceptin, almost halves the recurrence rate for an aggressive form of breast cancer, a study has found. Researchers call it a remarkable success rate. </font></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><font size="2" face="Arial">The findings appeared in the Oct. 20 issue of the <i>New England Journal of Medicine</i>. </font></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><font size="2" face="Arial">“This is probably the biggest evidence of a treatment effect I've ever seen in oncology,” said Richard Gelber of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, who led the statistical analysis for the study.</font></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><font size="2" face="Arial">The drug was studied for women early-stage HER2-positive breast cancer, known as an aggressive type that affects about 20 percent to 30 percent of women with the breast cancer.</font></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><font size="2" face="Arial">The study, known as HERA, was one of the largest breast cancer trials ever carried out, with more than 5,000 patients in 39 countries, researchers said. </font></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><font size="2" face="Arial">Women in the study were treated with Herceptin after getting standard chemotherapies. The study allowed the use of a wide range of chemotherapy regimens before treatment with Herceptin, making the results relevant to many parts of the world, the authors said.<br> <br> “Breast cancer is a serious and sometimes life-threatening disease, but with appropriate and timely treatment in the early stages, many women can improve their chances of long-term survival,” said Martine Piccart, lead investigator of the study and chair of the Breast International Group.</font></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><font size="2" face="Arial">“</font></b><b><font size="2" face="Arial"> For women with early-stage HER2-positive breast cancer, results from the HERA study provide some much needed optimism. The study showed that Herceptin, a drug designed specifically for HER2-positive breast cancer, can remarkably reduce the risk of cancer returning.... I can’t stress enough how crucial it is that all patients’ breast tumours are tested appropriately at initial diagnosis, and if patients are HER2-positive, that they have access to Herceptin.” <br> <br> Results from a joint interim analysis of over 3,000 patients from two North American trials provided similar results for Herceptin, researchers said. Those results were published in the same issue of the journal.</font></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <b><font size="2" face="Arial">* * *</font></p> </b> <p><b><font face="Arial" size="2" color="#FFFFFF">Send us a <a href="mailto:editor@world-science.net">comment</a> on this story, or <a href="mailto:?Body=http://www.world-science.net/othernews/051022_herceptfrm.htm">send it to a friend</a></font></b> </p> <p> </center> </td> </tr> </table> </body>