A New Weapon in Breast Cancer Fight?
The first genetically engineered drug to fight a particularly aggressive form of breast cancer can help shrink tumors and delay spread of the disease in some patients, according to a UCLA-based study released Sunday.
Research physicians gave the experimental drug, now called Herceptin, to more than 200 women undergoing treatment with one of three other standard chemotherapy agents. After nearly 11 months, these women were 23% to 32% more likely to experience detectable tumor shrinkage than was a comparable group of women receiving chemotherapy alone.
Moreover, adding Herceptin to the treatment cocktail appeared to slow the spread of the disease by an average of three months, the researchers said.
By substantially boosting the effects of other chemotherapies, the new drug “opens a new frontier” in cancer therapy, said the lead author, Dr. Dennis Slamon, director of the Revlon / UCLA Women’s Cancer Research Program. The results were presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting in Los Angeles.
The new treatment is targeted for the 30% of breast cancer patients whose tumor cells harbor a particular genetic alteration: They produce too much of a cell surface receptor called HER2 / neu, which appears to spur cell growth.
The drug, formerly known as MAb HER2, is a so-called monoclonal antibody protein that sticks to the receptor and thus interferes with a tumor’s growth.
What makes the drug so significant, Slamon said, was that it precisely attacks a key feature of the growing cancer cell rather than destroying both cancerous and healthy cells, the way harsh chemotherapies do. He said it may also be effective against ovarian tumors that overproduce the HER2 / neu receptor.
Herceptin is manufactured by the South San Francisco biotechnology firm Genentech, which submitted the study data earlier this month to the Food and Drug Administration for approval. The agency has reportedly given the drug “fast track” status, meaning a ruling is expected within six months.
