Breast Cancer New Drug

Breast Cancer New Drug Discoveries will help save many Lives

Breast cancer new drug discoveries are happening all the time. Doctors do breast cancer clinical trials on breast cancer patients and find new drugs that work to get rid of breast cancer.

Many new drugs prove to increase the breast cancer survival rate. Because of this scientific work, women have many breast cancer treatment options. Breast cancer research and treatment trials are saving lives every day.

There are different phases of breast cancer new drug trials:

• In phase I, the new drug is tested on a small number of people to see if it is safe and to see if it has any side effects.
• In phase II, the drug is given to more people to see if it is effective on the disease and to further decide if it is safe. It is usually done on patients who have few other choices for drug treatment because their cancer is advanced and unresponsive to other treatment.
• In phase III, the drug is used on a very large group of people to see if it is effective. It also checks to see if there are any more side effects noted and compares it to other treatments already available. Safety information is also gathered in phase III drug trials.
• In phase IV breast cancer new drug trials, the drug is already on the market. Doctors try to further identify any side effects and make sure the drug is completely safe.

These research studies are designed to make certain the drug is effective against the disease it was intended for, such as breast cancer. Breast cancer new drug trials take many years to complete. Women with advanced breast cancer often join a clinical trial in the hope of getting to take a medication that will help them because there are no other breast cancer treatment options for them.

Herceptin: a Breast Cancer New Drug

Herceptin is one of the newer drugs out there available for breast cancer. It is a drug that acts on the HER1 and HER2 receptors of the breast cancer tissue. Not all breast cancers are positive for the HER1 and HER2 receptors, but if you are positive, you might be able to take Herceptin.

This is a drug known to increase the breast cancer survival rate. This is according to advanced breast cancer research and treatment efforts. The drug binds to the receptors and blocks their action. The breast cancer cell doesn’t grow or develop as much when the medicine is binding to the receptor. You survive breast cancer better.

Patients with advanced cancer have a lower breast cancer survival rate. For HER2 positive cancers, doctors can increase that rate by giving them chemotherapy along with Herceptin. The tumor shrinks enough to be able to be removed by surgery. The Herceptin is given for an additional year and surgery is done to remove the tumor.

This seems to increase the breast cancer survival rate in women with advanced breast cancer.

Using Tykerb to Treat Advanced Cancers

A new cancer drug was approved in 2007 to treat advanced breast cancer patients. It was to be used along with chemotherapy in those patients that are HER receptor positive. Breast cancer research and treatment has shown that it is not to be used if Herceptin already works.

Breast cancer clinical trials have shown that it is effective in treating advanced cancer. Advanced cancer is breast cancer that has already spread to other body areas. Like Herceptin, Tykerb acts on the HER receptor and seems to work when Herceptin does not in some cases. Tykerb slows the progression of cancer but does not cure cancer.

Breast Cancer New Drugs That Block PARP

There have been breast cancer clinical trials that study drugs that block PARP—a repair enzyme cells make. These drugs have been shown to improve the breast cancer survival rate. Breast cancers that are difficult to treat have been treated by these drugs, especially women who have no hormone or HER receptors on their cancer cells.

Survival was increased by 60 percent in these women. A drug known as olaparib has successfully been used in advanced cancer patients. It shrank tumors in one third of patients who took it.

The drugs that block PARP are blocking an enzyme that fixes DNA damaged by chemotherapy. This means that cancer cells don’t have a chance to repair themselves when chemotherapy attacks them.

This is a breakthrough in breast cancer research and treatment. When women took the drug in breast cancer clinical trials, they nearly doubled their survival time, from 6 months to more than 9 months. Half of the tumors shrank using the drug, compared to 16 percent of patients that just took chemotherapy. The side effects of these drugs are about the same as with chemotherapy.

We hope this information has helped you know a bit about these drugs. You can always learn more on this web site and ask your medical team

Dr. Christine Traxler
2 5 2010