Cancer Treatment Today » Drug Treatment http://cancertreatmenttoday.org Knowledge is Power Fri, 24 Apr 2026 13:10:44 +0000 en-US hourly 1 Tarceva for breast cancer http://cancertreatmenttoday.org/4945/ http://cancertreatmenttoday.org/4945/#comments Thu, 23 Aug 2012 11:18:29 +0000 M Levin, MD http://cancertreatmenttoday.org/?p=4945 EGFR inhibition has been of great interest as a potential treatment for researchers working in breast cancer. Unfortunatley, drugs that inhibit EGFR gelfitinib and Iressa phase II studies in heavily pre-treated breast cancer patients did not show much activity.
 
This observation also appears to extend to another EGFR drug, Tarceva.  Two phase II studies , albeit in heavily pretreated patients, which might decrease a response rate, showed minimal activity and the kinds of side effects one expects from Tarceva. At the same time, some patients anecdotally and in case reports, respond well to Tarceva. The explanation for this disrepancy my be that the sensitivity to Tarceva is determined by CK-2 activity in a particular patient. If this observation stands up to farther investigation, patients may be able to be selected for Tarceva treatment based on their CK2 activation levels. In any case, use of Tarceva at this time for breast cancer is experimental and warrants farther study.

See the Professionla version here

]]> http://cancertreatmenttoday.org/4945/feed/ 0 Herceptin and Arimidex for HER+, ER/PR+ Metastatic Breast Cancer http://cancertreatmenttoday.org/herceptin-and-arimidex-for-her-erpr-metastatic-breast-cancer/ http://cancertreatmenttoday.org/herceptin-and-arimidex-for-her-erpr-metastatic-breast-cancer/#comments Thu, 19 Jul 2012 02:29:08 +0000 M Levin, MD http://cancertreatmenttoday.org/?p=3618 Is there a way to make cancers that stop responding to hormones increase their sensitivity to these drugs? Preclinical evidence suggests Herceptin (trustusumab) can restore and amplify responsiveness to hormonal therapy. The combination of Tykerb, which like Herceptin works on the HER receptor, and Femara is FDA approved and is thought to work through this mechanism. A randomized phase III TAnDEM study investigated Trastuzumab plus Arimidex(anastrozole) versus anastrozole alone for the treatment of postmenopausal women with receptors was for epidermal growth factor (EGFR), that suggests responsiveness to Herceptin, and hormones in metastatic breast cancer. Patients who received trastuzumab and anastrozole had longer period to progression (PFS, progression free survival) than patients who received anastrozole only. There was, however, no difference in overall survival between the two treatments. The numbers of adverse events and severe adverse events from treatment were higher with the to drug arm of the study compared to anastrozole only arm. This was a crossover design, in which patients who failed on anastrozole arm could crossover to the combination arm, which may have interfered with finding a difference in survival between the two arms.

Much more research needs to be done and guidelines have not yet incorporated Herceptin and Arimidex as standard recommendation. The editorial that accompanied the publication of the study suggested that such evidence, “should be viewed as pioneering and hypothesis driven; they are likely to become obligatory references in the field of HER2 breast cancer.”

Read the Professional version here.

]]> http://cancertreatmenttoday.org/herceptin-and-arimidex-for-her-erpr-metastatic-breast-cancer/feed/ 0