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| British doctors have discovered combining two powerful breast cancer drugs could dramatically shrink or destroy tumours in just 11 days. File photograph: Rui Vieira/PA Wire |
Combining two powerful breast
cancer drugs could dramatically shrink or destroy tumours in
just 11 days, British doctors have discovered.
Some patients with HER2
positive breast cancer may be spared chemotherapy altogether if they are given
the drugs straight after diagnosis and before they have surgery. About 15 per cent to 25
per cent of women diagnosed with breast cancer have HER2, which tends to grow
more quickly than some other types of breast cancer.
Researchers have
discovered that combining the drugs Tyverb (lapatinib) and Herceptin
(trastuzumab) and giving them to women before surgery could lead to tumours
shrinking significantly or even disappearing.
Presenting their
findings at the European Breast Cancer Conference in Amsterdam,
experts described the findings as exciting.
The UK EPHOS-B trial
involved 257 women with newly diagnosed HER2 positive breast cancer.
In the first part of the
trial, 130 women were randomised to receive either no treatment before surgery
or Herceptin and Tyverb for 11 days after diagnosis and before surgery.
According to Cancer Research UK,
current treatments are effective, and women often experience a complete
response after three to four months.
Nevertheless,
researchers said the 11-day response was very surprising.
Prof Arnie Purushotham,
senior clinical adviser at Cancer Research UK, which funded the study, said:
“These results are very promising if they stand up in the long run and could be
the starting step of finding a new way to treat HER2 positive breast cancers.
About 5,300 to 8,000
women a year are diagnosed with HER2 positive breast cancer.
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