Herceptin boosts breast cancer survival, study says
Breast cancer that is highly aggressive but caught early appears to be best treated with a combination of Herceptin and chemotherapy, according to a study released Wednesday.
UCLA researchers conducted a three-armed study looking at women with early-stage breast cancer that is an aggressive type known as HER-2 positive. Survival rates were measured after five years.
The study showed that women who received Herceptin along with various chemotherapy medications had better survival rates than women who did not receive Herceptin. Herceptin targets the genetic mutation that leads to HER-2 positive cancer.
Overall disease-free survival rates at five years was 75% for women who received Adriamycin and carboplatin plus Taxotere; 84% for those who received the same regimen plus one year of Herceptin and 81% for those taking Taxotere and carboplatin plus one year of Herceptin.
Researchers also found that women who did not take the chemotherapy drug Adriamycin -- which can cause heart damage when paired with Herceptin, fared as well as those who did take Adriamycin. That suggests that Adriamycin can probably be avoided altogether in the treatment of early-stage breast cancer.
The women taking Adriamycin and Herceptin had five times the rate of congestive heart failure and double the rates of having heart problems without symptoms. They also had more side effects such as nausea, neuropathy and fatigue.
“Given the data in this study, it makes one really question what role Adriamycin should play in the treatment of HER-2 positive early breast cancer, or in the treatment of early breast cancer at all,” Dr. Dennis Slamon, the lead author of the study, said in a news release. “This trial should impact the way these breast cancers are treated, with a non-anthracycline [Adriamycin] regimen being our preferred option.”
Slamon discovered the HER-2 gene mutation’s link to breast cancer in 1987. About 20% to 25% of all breast cancers are HER-2 positive.
The study appears in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Return to Booster Shots blog.
Follow me: twitter.com/LATShariRoan
