SAN ANTONIO, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- Herceptin coupled with chemotherapy is increasing survival in patients with early breast cancer, a new study shows.
A large international study by the Breast Cancer International Research Group suggests that pairing the targeted therapy Herceptin with chemotherapy in patients with early-stage breast cancer significantly raises the disease-free survival time in women who test positive for a genetic mutation that results in a particularly aggressive form of the disease, researchers said.
The study also tested Herceptin with a chemotherapy combination that eliminated Adriamycin, an anthracycline commonly used to treat breast cancer but that, when used with Herceptin, can result in heart damage.
That regimen also seems to substantially improve survival, researchers noted.
The study is the fourth large clinical trial to show that Herceptin plus chemotherapy significantly reduces risk of disease recurrence in early breast cancer. The findings were released Thursday at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.
"The chemotherapy combinations we tested with Herceptin proved to be superior to the best available standard therapy for early breast cancer," said Dennis Slamon, lead investigator for the BCIRG study. "This further illustrates the promise of targeted therapies and moves us closer to our goal of minimizing the toxicity of therapy while maximizing efficacy," he said.
Herceptin is effective in women with HER-2 positive breast cancer, about one in four diagnosed with the disease every year. HER-2 positive breast-cancer patients have a particularly aggressive form of the disease, a poorer prognosis and shorter survival times, Slamon said.
