WORLD SCIENCE

"Long before it's in the papers"
August 03, 2010

Oct. 22, 2005
Special to World Science

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.

The findings appeared in the Oct. 20 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. 

“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.

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 breast cancer.

The study, known as HERA, was one of the largest breast cancer trials ever conducted, with more than 5,000 patients in 39 countries, researchers said. 

Women in the study were treated with the drug 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.

“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.

“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.” 

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.

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