New breast-cancer drug helping women

SAN ANTONIO (AP):

New drug combinations are helping women with early breast cancer. Using two drugs that more precisely target tumours doubled the number of women whose cancer disappeared compared to those who had only one of the drugs, doctors reported yesterday.

It was the first test of Herceptin and Tykerb together for early-stage disease. They aim at a protein called HER-2 that is overproduced in about one-fourth of all breast cancers. Herceptin blocks the protein on the cell's surface; Tykerb does it inside the cell.

Dr Jose Baselga, associate director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, led a study when he previously worked in Barcelona, Spain, that tested these drugs alone and in combination in 455 patients who also were given the chemotherapy drug paclitaxel.

The patients were treated for about four months before surgery to remove their tumours and for nine months afterwards. Doctors have been testing drugs in advance of surgery to shrink tumours and make the operation less drastic, and to get an idea quickly if these drugs will help a patient.

Just over half the women who received Herceptin and Tykerb were discovered to have no signs of invasive cancer when their surgeries were done, versus only 25-30 per cent of those given just one of these drugs.

Tykerb had more side effects, mostly diarrhoea. But the main side effect of combo treatment is to the wallet: Tykerb pills cost US$5,000-US$6,000 per month. Herceptin costs more than US$4,000 a month, plus whatever doctors charge to infuse it.

"The possibility that we have here is to enhance the number of patients that are cured" and avoid more treatment down the line that might cost more, Baselga said.

However, Dr Neil Spector of the Duke Cancer Institute said cost "is a real consideration".

Yet, he called the results "really exciting", and said the future of cancer care lies in approaches that use targeted drugs well matched to patients' tumour profiles.

Britain-based GlaxoSmithKline PLC makes Tykerb; California-based Genentech, now part of the Swiss company Roche, makes Herceptin.

A second study in Germany pitted the two drugs against each other in 600 women with early breast cancer also getting standard chemotherapy for six months before surgery. Herceptin won: 31 per cent saw their tumours disappear versus 22 per cent on Tykerb.

The studies were reported on Friday at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.