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Tests Show Drug Fights Aggressive Breast Cancer

October 20, 2005

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A drug that targets an aggressive type of breast cancer cell cuts the risk of relapse in half, three new studies found. The drug, which targets only diseased cells, works only for the estimated 20 percent of breast cancer cases in which tumors produce too much of a protein known as HER-2.

For women with that type of breast cancer, the drug Herceptin can significantly improve survival rates when used either in conjunction with or after standard chemotherapy and when the disease is detected early, researchers said.

This type of cancer accounts for 15% to 25% of all breast cancers. Because more than 200,000 American women are diagnosed with breast tumors each year, this means the drug could be used for up to 50,000 patients, and potentially save thousands of lives.

Herceptin was approved by the government in 1998 to treat breast cancer that has already spread within the body, but early-stage breast cancer is much more common.

Some cancer experts said the Herceptin findings are the biggest breast cancer breakthrough since tamoxifen, a drug used for years that also has a 50 percent reduction risk but treats estrogen-positive cancers.

Doctors have already begun to treat early-stage breast cancer patients with Herceptin, which is given intravenously.

The studies show that ``we can dramatically reduce the risk of recurrence'' among women who have HER2-positive breast cancer, which accounts for about 15 percent to 20 percent of breast cancers, said Dr. Harold Burstein of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

``This is very exciting,'' said Burstein, who wrote a perspective piece accompanying the findings. ``It is going to help women live better and live longer and will help cure some women.''

"On the basis of these results, our care of patients with HER2-positive breast cancer must change today," said Dr. Gabriel Hortobagyi, an oncologist at the University of Texas in Houston and president-elect of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Hortobagyi called the findings of the two independent studies, published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, "not evolutionary but revolutionary."

However, both studies also found a slightly higher risk of heart failure among women on Herceptin. And it was unclear whether that danger would grow when the drug was taken long term, researchers said.

Herceptin will be marketed internationally by the Swiss drugmaker Roche.

One study was conducted internationally by Roche. The other two were North American studies sponsored by the National Cancer Institute.

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