Drug has stunning effect on breast cancer
Published: October 20, 2005
Doctors believe they may have a cure for a form of breast cancer which afflicts thousands of women in Britain every year. Herceptin had already been unveiled as a potential lifesaver after trials of the drug suggested it could halve the risk of the cancer returning.
But yesterday, as the full results were published, doctors were hailing it in terms of a cure.
They spoke of ’stunning’ and ‘revolutionary’ results after scrutinising the full data of a study of thousands of women with early stage breast cancer. The drug cut the risk of a relapse by almost half.
Herceptin can help around one in four women who have a specific type of breast cancer known as HER2-positive.
It acts against a protein associated with particularly aggressive tumours.
The study of more than 5,000 patients in 39 countries found there were 220 recurrences of cancer in those who did not receive Herceptin, compared to 127 among those on the drug for a year - a reduction of 46 per cent.
News of the breakthrough came only weeks after breast cancer patient Barbara Clark won a landmark legal fight with her local authority in Somerset to be prescribed Herceptin. And it came a day after health bosses in South West England said they had decided to make the drug readily available.
US doctors convinced of cure
The results of the study, published in the highly respected New England Journal of Medicine this week, amazed even the most senior breast cancer experts.
Last night Dr Jo Anne Zujewski, head of the U.S. government’s National Cancer Institute, said: “In 1991, I didn’t know that we would cure breast cancer, and in 2005, I’m convinced we have.”
Dr Gabriel Hortobagyi of the University of Texas said: “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.
“This observation suggests a dramatic and perhaps permanent perturbation of the natural history of the disease, (and) may even be a cure.”
Currently the drug is not licensed for patients in the early stages of breast cancer, but charities and doctors have appealed for it to be made available to all eligible women as soon as possible.
The Government has pledged that once a licence for early breast cancer is granted, probably some time next year, the drug will be fast-tracked for use across the NHS.
This week the South West Peninsula Health Authority announced it will pay for the drug, which costs around £22,000 for a year’s supply, for all eligible patients in its region even before it is licensed.
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