breast cancer New drugs show big promise

Associated Press

SAN ANTONIO

Breast-cancer experts are cheering what could be some of the biggest advances in more than a decade: two new medicines that significantly delay the time until women with advanced cases get worse.

In a large international study, an experimental drug from Genentech called pertuzumab held cancer at bay for a median of 18 months when given with standard treatment, versus 12 months for others given only the usual treatment. It also strongly appears to be improving survival, and follow-up is continuing to see if it does.

“You don’t see that very often. ... It’s a spectacular result,” said one study leader, Dr. Sandra Swain, medical director of Washington Hospital Center’s cancer institute.

In a second study, another drug long used in organ transplants but not tried against breast cancer — everolimus, sold as Afinitor by Novartis AG — kept cancer in check for a median of seven months in women whose disease was worsening despite treatment with hormone-blocking drugs. A comparison group that received only hormonal medicine had just a three-month delay in disease progression.

Afinitor works in a novel way, seems “unusually effective” and sets a new standard of care, said Dr. Peter Ravdin, breast-cancer chief at the UT Health Science Center in San Antonio. Most patients have tumors like those in this study — their growth is fueled by estrogen.

Results were released Wednesday.