May 11, 2001
Study finds two-drug combination has effect against form of advanced breast cancer
A combination of two drugs - one a recent addition to the anti-cancer arsenal, the other a mainstay chemotherapy agent - can have a substantial effect against tumors in women with advanced breast cancer while causing few side effects, according to a study by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women's Hospital.
The drugs used were Herceptin, a commercially produced version of an antibody made naturally by the body, and Navelbine, a standard front-line chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer. They were taken weekly by a group of 40 women whose breast tumors produce an overabundance of a protein called HER2. Such "HER2 positive" tumors are found in an estimated 20-30 percent of women with breast cancer.
"Herceptin is an important part of the clinical treatment of women with this type of breast cancer," said the study's lead author, Harold Burstein, M.D., Ph.D., of Dana-Farber and Brigham and Women's. "However the best drug or drugs to pair with Herceptin are not known. This study looked at one such combination."
The results of the clinical trial are being published in the May 15 issue of Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Researchers found that the use of the two drugs led to dramatic tumor shrinkage in 30 of the patients - three-quarters of the entire group. "Among women who had not previously been treated with chemotherapy for metastatic [spreading] breast cancer, 84 percent had a significant tumor response," Burstein said. "Perhaps more impressive, however, was the high rate of response - more than two-thirds - among women who had previously been treated with various kinds of chemotherapy, and the fact that this combination was so well tolerated by our patients, without many of the traditional side effects of chemotherapy."
Researchers selected Herceptin and Navelbine for the study because both drugs are known to produce few of the side effects - nausea, hair loss - that can make chemotherapy treatment an ordeal for patients. In addition, laboratory studies had suggested the combination of the two drugs might be particularly effective in treating women with HER2 positive breast cancer.
"It is gratifying to be able to use insights from the laboratory to guide our treatment choices and create effective, well tolerated treatments to cancer patients," said senior author Eric Winer, M.D., director of the Breast Oncology Center at Dana-Farber.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (www.dana-farber.org) is a principal teaching affiliate of the Harvard Medical School and is among the leading cancer research and care centers in the United States. It is a founding member of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DF/HCC), a designated comprehensive cancer center by the National Cancer Institute.
