Herceptin eradicates aggressive tumors: study
ZURICH (Reuters) - Adding Herceptin to chemotherapy before surgery eradicates tumors in nearly three times as many women with inflammatory breast cancer as chemotherapy alone, the drug's maker Roche Holding AG said on Wednesday.
The results were from a clinical trial in women with inflammatory HER2-positive breast cancer, a rare but highly aggressive form of the disease, presented at the European Cancer Conference in Barcelona.
The treatment was well tolerated and with acceptable cardiac safety in the late-stage clinical trial, Roche said in a statement.
Herceptin is already approved in Europe and the United States for use against breast cancer in the 25-30 percent of patients who carry the HER-2 gene.
Inflammatory breast cancer is a particularly aggressive form of the disease in which tumors spread quickly, and patients often require mastectomies. It has a worse prognosis than other types of breast cancer.
Roche said results were significant because treatment with Herceptin in this setting could result in more breast-conserving surgery and, most importantly, could improve survival.
"Herceptin has been proven to extend lives across the spectrum of HER2-positive disease, so these latest findings will be welcome news for the unfortunate few with inflammatory breast cancer, which is an especially devastating form of the disease," said study investigator Wolfgang Eiermann of the Red Cross Women's' Hospital in Munich.
What breastcancer.org says about this article…
Herceptin eradicates aggressive tumors: study
If you have been diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer that is HER2-positive, you might want to discuss the study reviewed here with your doctor.
Inflammatory breast cancer is a relatively rare but very serious, aggressive type of breast cancer. Symptoms of inflammatory breast cancer can include:
- Redness of all or part of the breast. Sometimes the redness comes and goes.
- Swelling of the breast.
- Warmth. The breast may feel warm.
- Orange-peel appearance. The breast can swell and start to look like an orange peel (called "peau d'orange").
- Ridges, welts, or hives on the breast.
About 50% of women have a lump or a mass in the breast, but it may be difficult to feel since the breast is often bigger and harder than normal.
Inflammatory breast cancer is hard to diagnose and sometimes is misdiagnosed as an infection. Because the disease is rare, many doctors have never seen it. And it hasn't been studied as much as other types of breast cancer. Swelling and redness of the breast are more commonly caused by an infection. That's why doctors think of that diagnosis first. Estimates of how often inflammatory breast cancer occurs have ranged from 1% to 10% of all breast cancer cases.
Inflammatory breast cancer can be difficult to treat. Chemotherapy often is given at the time of diagnosis, followed by surgery and radiation. Additional chemotherapy and other treatments may follow.
In the study reviewed here, HER2-positive inflammatory breast cancer treated with Herceptin (chemical name: trastuzumab) and chemotherapy before surgery was 3 times more likely to fully respond than when the cancer was treated with chemotherapy alone.
Herceptin is a targeted therapy that attacks breast cancers that make too much of the HER2/neu gene or HER2 protein. These cancers are called HER2-positive. Herceptin also is called an immune treatment because it is an antibody that blocks the HER2 protein in cancer cells. Blocking the protein helps stop the growth of HER2-positive cancer cells. About 1 out of every 4 breast cancers is HER2-positive. HER2-positive breast cancers tend to be more aggressive than HER2-negative breast cancers.
If you've been diagnosed with HER2-positive inflammatory breast cancer, talk to your doctor about whether Herceptin is a good treatment option for you. To learn more, visit the breastcancer.org Inflammatory Breast Cancer page.