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Doctors Hail New Cancer Therapy -- Herceptin Effective for Breast Tumors

Posted on: Friday, 21 October 2005, 09:00 CDT

By Jeff Donn Associated Press / Mark Watson contributed

A drug that targets only diseased cells has proved effective against an aggressive form of early breast cancer - a long-sought breakthrough that has doctors talking about curing thousands of women each year in this country alone.

The drug, Herceptin, is already used for advanced cancer. But in three studies involving thousands of women with early-stage disease, it cut the risk of a relapse in half.

Several experts used words like "revolutionary,""stunning" and "jaw-dropping" to describe the findings.

"In 1991, I didn't know that we would cure breast cancer, and in 2005, I'm convinced we have," said Dr. Jo Anne Zujewski, head of breast cancer therapeutics at the government's National Cancer Institute.

However, an official at the American Cancer Society warned that it is far too early to suggest this amounts to a cure, since the women studied were followed for only three years at the most.

Moreover, Herceptin is only for the estimated 20 percent of breast cancer cases in which tumors make too much of a protein known as HER2. Even then, the drug does not help everyone.

Still, Herceptin could be the biggest thing in cancer drugs since research a decade ago demonstrated the extraordinary effectiveness of tamoxifen, another medicine that transformed the treatment of the disease by homing in on cancer cells but sparing healthy ones.

Herceptin, made by Genentech, appears to have "changed one of the most worrisome kinds of cancers into one that may have a relatively good prognosis," said Dr. Ed Romond of the University of Kentucky.

He was one of the researchers who reported findings from three Herceptin studies in The New England Journal of Medicine. One was an international study sponsored by Herceptin's European marketer, Roche. The others were North American studies sponsored by the National Cancer Institute.

The researchers followed a total of more than 6,500 women with early-stage breast cancer. Women received Herceptin along with the standard treatments, including surgery and chemotherapy.

In the first study, 220 women undergoing standard therapy for a year either developed breast cancer again, showed other kinds of tumors, or died. Only 127 did when Herceptin was added.

The two other studies, partly funded by Genentech, reached similar findings in their combined results. At three years, patients on Herceptin showed a disease-free survival rate that was 12 percentage points higher than without it.

The government approved the drug in 1998 for advanced breast cancer that has already spread within the body. But early-stage cases are much more common.

Many doctors are already embracing the drug for such women, cancer experts say.

"The strength of the evidence is so overwhelming at this point that it would be almost impossible to withhold this drug from the appropriate group of patients," said Dr. Gabriel Hortobagyi, of the University of Texas, president-elect of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Genentech intends to apply to the U.S. government to add early- stage cancer use to Herceptin's label, spokeswoman Colleen Wilson said. But doctors are already free to prescribe the drug for early breast cancer on their own authority.

It is expensive: A year of Herceptin could cost $48,000 even at wholesale prices.

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Greater Memphis reacts to cancer drug

West Clinic oncologist Dr. Lee Schwartzberg , who participated in the recently published Herceptin studies:

"We took a group of patients who has the worst prognosis in breast cancer and we've now converted them to a group who has a very good prognosis when they have Herceptin."

Dr. Mohammad Jahanzeb University of Tennessee chief of hematology- oncology, who is now researching the use of Herceptin with other compounds to treat breast cancer:

"When the results were announced at a conference this summer, there was standing applause with about 4,000 people for several minutes. It was electrifying."

Dr. Johnetta Blakely , an oncologist who treats patients at Methodist Healthcare hospitals:

"The reason it's great is we can use it in earlier stages. (With this particular type of breast cancer) a lot of times, those tumors are more aggressive."

- Compiled by Mark Watson

Source: Commercial Appeal, The

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