New late-stage breast cancer treatment approved

[BlueGin]

New late-stage breast cancer treatment approved




(CNN) -- A drug that presents a new way to knock out cancer cells was approved Friday to treat patients with a certain type of late-stage metastatic breast cancer.

The drug, referred to as T-DM1 during clinical research, will now be known by the brand name Kadcyla, the Food and Drug Administration said in its approval announcement. It's a new therapy for women with HER2-positive breast cancer.

Kadcyla is a combination of the targeted drug trastuzumab -- better known by the brand name Herceptin -- and a powerful chemotherapy drug called DM1. It's designed to work when Herceptin alone can no longer keep cancer in check.

DM1 is too toxic to deliver directly into a patient's bloodstream, like other chemotherapy drugs. The Herceptin part of the new drug homes in on cancer cells, sparing other healthy cells, and delivers DM1 into the cell.

(CNN) -- A drug that presents a new way to knock out cancer cells was approved Friday to treat patients with a certain type of late-stage metastatic breast cancer.

The drug, referred to as T-DM1 during clinical research, will now be known by the brand name Kadcyla, the Food and Drug Administration said in its approval announcement. It's a new therapy for women with HER2-positive breast cancer.

Kadcyla is a combination of the targeted drug trastuzumab -- better known by the brand name Herceptin -- and a powerful chemotherapy drug called DM1. It's designed to work when Herceptin alone can no longer keep cancer in check.

DM1 is too toxic to deliver directly into a patient's bloodstream, like other chemotherapy drugs. The Herceptin part of the new drug homes in on cancer cells, sparing other healthy cells, and delivers DM1 into the cell.

New late-stage breast cancer treatment approved - CNN.com

 

[MeBelle]

Excellent!
I participate in Relay for life.
I am a cancer survivor!

 

[Sarah G]

New late-stage breast cancer treatment approved




(CNN) -- A drug that presents a new way to knock out cancer cells was approved Friday to treat patients with a certain type of late-stage metastatic breast cancer.

The drug, referred to as T-DM1 during clinical research, will now be known by the brand name Kadcyla, the Food and Drug Administration said in its approval announcement. It's a new therapy for women with HER2-positive breast cancer.

Kadcyla is a combination of the targeted drug trastuzumab -- better known by the brand name Herceptin -- and a powerful chemotherapy drug called DM1. It's designed to work when Herceptin alone can no longer keep cancer in check.

DM1 is too toxic to deliver directly into a patient's bloodstream, like other chemotherapy drugs. The Herceptin part of the new drug homes in on cancer cells, sparing other healthy cells, and delivers DM1 into the cell.

(CNN) -- A drug that presents a new way to knock out cancer cells was approved Friday to treat patients with a certain type of late-stage metastatic breast cancer.

The drug, referred to as T-DM1 during clinical research, will now be known by the brand name Kadcyla, the Food and Drug Administration said in its approval announcement. It's a new therapy for women with HER2-positive breast cancer.

Kadcyla is a combination of the targeted drug trastuzumab -- better known by the brand name Herceptin -- and a powerful chemotherapy drug called DM1. It's designed to work when Herceptin alone can no longer keep cancer in check.

DM1 is too toxic to deliver directly into a patient's bloodstream, like other chemotherapy drugs. The Herceptin part of the new drug homes in on cancer cells, sparing other healthy cells, and delivers DM1 into the cell.

New late-stage breast cancer treatment approved - CNN.com

How wonderful! Let's hope for few side effects and many lives spared this heartbreaking assault on their body.

 

[BlueGin]

Apparently a bigger research trial is set for June. Hopefully all goes well...article does say that patients who use it do have a better quality of life than the patients who were on other treatments. Less severe side effects maybe?

In the comments section there was an oncology nurse stating that she had been involved in the study for several years and was happy that this drug was going to be on the market due to it's success. And and a researcher talking about all of the obsticles,cost and time that it takes to get new drugs approved by the FDA. Just glad they finally got it out there...and hopefully it will be beneficial. Sounds promicing anyway.

 

[Mad Scientist]

Let me guess: The side effects of the Drug are worse than the Cancer itself.

Why don't Scientists look into the Cause of Cancer? Because there's no money in that.

Late Stage Cancer Therapies are just ways to prolong a persons condition so that they may extract money from them or their Insurance with prohibitively Expensive Surgeries and Drug Therapies.

That doesn't sound like a cure, that sound more like "Disease Management".



Inb4 someone misses my point and posts something like: "Just wait till YOU or someone you love gets Cancer you asshole!"

 

[waltky]

Granny puts olive oil on her garlic bread...

Study: Olive Oil Could Lower Breast Cancer Risk
September 14, 2015 - There is more potentially good news about eating a Mediterranean diet boosted with a sizable supplement of extra virgin olive oil.

A small study of Spanish women showed the diet “was associated with a relatively lower risk of breast cancer,” according to a news release. The study followed two groups of women averaging in their late 60s - 4,282 in total - who were given two variations of a Mediterranean diet, a diet that is heavy on fruits, nuts and vegetables with small portions of fish, lean meat, cheese and wine. One group had their diet supplemented with extra virgin olive oil, while another were given nuts instead.

Extra virgin olive oil is believed to be healthy because it is manufactured without chemicals or heat which could change its beneficial properties. "Several biological mechanisms could explain the putative anticarcinogenic properties of extra virgin olive oil," the researchers wrote. Starting in 2003, the olive oil group received a liter per week for them and their families, and the nut group received 15 grams of walnuts, 7.5 grams of almonds and another 7.4 grams of hazelnuts.

A small study suggests extra virgin olive oil may reduce the risk of breast cancer.

In 2009, those who had the olive oil showed a 68 percent lower risk of malignant breast cancer compared to a control group, while those eating nuts had similar rates of cancer as the control group. “The Mediterranean dietary pattern has attracted considerable attention because, historically, breast cancer rates have been lower in Mediterranean countries than in Northern or Central European countries or the United States," the researchers wrote. The study, which was led by researchers at the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain, did have a couple shortcomings.

The women studied were originally enrolled to study the effects of the Mediterranean diet on heart disease. Also,researchers say they still can’t tell if the olive oil was the reason or if it was adherence to the diet. Researchers say the results of the study “suggest a beneficial effect of a [Mediterranean diet] supplemented with [olive oil] in the primary prevention of breast cancer. Preventive strategies represent the most sensible approach against cancer.” Breast cancer is the second most deadly cancer in the U.S., with 232,000 diagnoses this year, according to the American Cancer Society. Roughly 40,000 will die of the disease.

Study: Olive Oil Could Lower Breast Cancer Risk

 

[waltky]

New gene-based test can avoid unnecessary chemotherapy...

New Test May Avoid Unnecessary Chemotherapy
September 24, 2015 - Breast cancer patients dread chemotherapy because of its many side effects, such as sickness and hair loss, together with potential lung, liver and bone damage. But studies show that some patients do not benefit from chemotherapy. A new gene-based test now helps doctors screen those patients and avoid the unnecessary treatment.

When samples of breast tissue show the presence of a malignant tumor, doctors often prescribe surgery followed by a six-month treatment of medicine, which can include chemotherapy to prevent further spread of cancer cells. Chemotherapy kills the remaining cancer cells but also has adverse side effects – nausea, hair loss, fatigue, as well as possible infertility and damage to some organs. “We know that some drugs can affect the heart. There's a question about long-term effects of slightly increasing the risks of dementia for instance. Apart from that, of course, there's the unpleasantness of the four months of treatment that's required, and it'll often take people out of work for six months," said Dr. Simon Holt, of the Prince Phillip Hospital in Wales.

A new test developed in the U.S., called Oncotype DX, determines how the patient will respond to chemotherapy. “Oncotype DX is effectively telling you about the inside workings of the cell, which particular genes have gone wrong to create that particular cancer, and, from a reading of those genes, we can then get more information about whether this tumor is the sort that is likely to spread to some other part of the body, or not," Holt said.

Avoiding chemotherapy after surgery means that patients like Nia Barton can resume their normal lives except for regular checkups to make sure they remain cancer free.

Oncotype DX is one of several gene-based tests that can tell doctors how likely the recurrence of the disease is, and it is most accurate in the early stages. Similar tests, such as Prosigna and Endopredict, are undergoing clinical trials in the UK, Germany and Austria. So far, Oncotype DX is used only in cases of breast cancer, but researchers say similar tests can be developed for other types of cancer.

New Test May Avoid Unnecessary Chemotherapy

See also:

Researchers Use Blood Test to Detect Cancer Recurrence
August 27, 2015 - Breast cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer death among women. It’s caught early about 95 percent of the time, and a relatively simple operation can remove the tumor. Chemotherapy can follow surgery to try to kill cancer cells that might have gotten away.

But some women who seem to be cured experience a recurrence, with metastatic cancer cells re-establishing tumors at distant sites, including the liver and brain. “What we know unfortunately is chemotherapy doesn’t work ... in everybody," said Nicholas Turner, an oncologist at the Institute of Cancer Research in London. "And what we need are tests to help work out whether there’s cancer left after chemotherapy to help us direct treatment.”

In an article published in Science Translational Medicine, Turner and his colleagues describe being able to detect DNA from tumor cells circulating in the blood. The technique uses highly sensitive genetic sequencing to track tumor-specific mutations from cells that split off from the original cancer.

A nurse assists a patient undergoing a mammogram.

Investigators took regular blood samples for two years from 55 women with early-stage breast cancer who had been treated with surgery and chemotherapy and were considered cancer-free. Eventually, 15 patients relapsed. But researchers had detected the cancer DNA in a dozen of the women an average of eight months before the tumors could be seen with mammograms or other conventional imaging.

For now, Turner said, not much can be done to help patients whose tumors have spread, "so what we need to be able to try to do is identify them much earlier in the point where there are relatively few cancer cells, where treatments stand a chance of potentially curing it.” And because the test focuses on mutations in the tumor cells, researchers say that information could help doctors select the most effective drugs for targeting the cancer.

Researchers Use Blood Test to Detect Cancer Recurrence

 

[waltky]

Palbociclib could be used against other forms of the disease...

Study: Breast Cancer Drug Could Have Wider Use
December 31, 2015 - A drug used to fight breast cancer may be effective against other forms of the disease, according to a new study.

Writing in the journal JAMA Oncology, researchers from the Abramson Cancer Center (ACC) in the University of Pennsylvania, say that after reviewing existing literature and doing their own research, palbociclib could attack other types of cancer cells while inflicting little or no harm to healthy cells. Palbociclib is a CDK4/6 inhibitor, meaning it targets certain enzymes that drive rapid tumor cell division. It was the first such drug approved against breast cancer.

Radiologist uses magnifying glass to check mammograms for breast cancer in Los Angeles.​

"All living cells undergo cell division and palbociclib's unique capacity to halt the cell division process (also known as the 'cell cycle') therefore has potentially broad applicability," said lead author Amy S. Clark, MD, MSCE, an assistant professor of Hematology/Oncology at Penn's Perelman School of Medicine and ACC. "Pairing palbociclib with other anti-cancer therapies such as endocrine therapy, chemotherapy, and targeted therapy can create a powerful combinatorial effect with real promise for addressing a variety of cancers." The researchers say the drug has shown promise against lymphoma, sarcoma, and teratoma, which are relatively rare, but often strike young people.

In a phase 2 trial, the drug was used on 17 patients with mantle-cell lymphoma. One patient had a “complete response,” meaning the cancer disappeared for at least some time, while two others had “partial responses.” The drug also appeared to improve survival times among patients with the disease. Furthermore, researchers said that in other cancer trials, the drug “has been shown to be safe with once-daily dosing,” with the main side effect being lower counts of a certain type of white blood cells that fight infection. That, researchers say, can be reversed by temporarily stopping the drug, then later resuming treatment at a lower dose.

Study: Breast Cancer Drug Could Have Wider Use

 

[strollingbones]

i understand what you are saying mad......there is no money in 'curing' any disease.....hell we are lucky we have the few vaccines we have now days...people with cancer....i dont we are ever 'cured' in our minds....once they hit you with cancer its kinda hard to go back to normal.....i call my chemo....chemo lite...due to not having a portal and just having the chemicals placed in my bladder.....just that can exhaust you...each person reacting differently....i simply cannot imagine how hard chemo is on others hell i dont have too.....one friend is a lung cancer survivor another has survived two bouts of hodgkin's....her co pay was well over a million dollars....she is 10 years out but her teeth have decayed and one of her major hip bones is dying....

you ask if the side effects are worse than cancer.....no i guess not...my doctor discussed the word 'cured' with me...and flat out said.....disease management was the way we are going....that he would never use the word 'cured'

the cost of staying alive is amazing at this stage of the game...

 

[waltky]

Breast cancer genetic discovery hailed...

Breast cancer: Scientists hail 'very significant' genetic find
Mon, 02 May 2016 - Scientists say they now have a near-perfect picture of the genetic events that cause breast cancer, which they hope will unlock new ways of treating the disease.

The study, published in Nature, has been described as a hugely significant moment that could help unlock new ways of treating and preventing the disease. The largest study of its kind unpicked practically all the errors that cause healthy breast tissue to go rogue. Cancer Research UK said the findings were an important stepping-stone to new drugs.

Radiographer carries out a mammogram​

To understand the causes of cancer, scientists have to understand what goes wrong in our DNA that makes healthy tissue turn cancerous. The international team looked at all 3 billion letters of people's genetic code - their entire blueprint of life - in 560 breast cancers. They uncovered 93 sets of instructions, or genes, that if mutated, can cause tumours. Some have been discovered before, but scientists expect this to be the definitive list, barring a few rare mutations.

'Mutational signatures'

Prof Sir Mike Stratton, the director of the Sanger Institute in Cambridge which led the study, told the BBC News website: "In the latter part of the last century we were able to identify the first individual genes that became mutated. "Now with our ability to sequence the whole genome of very large numbers of cancers we're moving to essentially a, more-or-less, comprehensive or complete list of those mutated cancer genes so it is a very significant moment for cancer research."

And crucially, each of those mutations is also a potential weakness that can be used to develop drugs. "This is no longer speculation or hand-waving," said Prof Stratton. Targeted drugs such as Herceptin are already being used by patients with specific mutations. Prof Stratton expects new drugs will still take decades to reach patients and warns: "Cancers are devious beasts and they work out ways of developing resistance to new therapeutics so overall I'm optimistic, but it's a tempered optimism."

MORE

 

[waltky]

Skin implant can Help Detect Breast Cancer Spread...

Under-the-skin Implants Help Detect Breast Cancer Spread
September 23, 2016 - New research is showing promise for patients with metastatic breast cancer, according to scientists at the University of Michigan.

Early detection of the primary malignant breast tumor offers encouraging prospects for stopping the disease, but once it starts to spread, survival rates diminish. However, early metastasis is hard to detect.

Using biodegradable material commonly found in sutures and wound dressings, scientists created a scaffold that can be implanted under the skin and easily observed with non-invasive imaging.

A patient receives chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer at the Antoine-Lacassagne Cancer Center in Nice​

The scaffold attracts the body's immune cells, which in turn attract cancer cells away from their usual targets — the lungs, liver and brain. The colonization of the scaffolding by cancer cells can be immediately detected, enabling the earliest possible start of treatment.

Studies have shown that the method increases survivability in mice with breast cancer. Next, scientists are developing clinical trials for humans.

Under-the-skin Implants Help Detect Breast Cancer Spread