Trials on HER+ B/C

Hi Pinks:

Finally stopped playing Spider Solitair long enough to tell you about an article in the Houston Chronicle dated 1/27 (chron.com). This is in part what it says:

Trials are conducted at the Methodist Cancer Center in Houston and Carolina Hematology & Oncology ****. in Charlotte, N.C. on HER+ B/C.  A new combination of standard chemotherapy (doxetaxel), pertuzumab and a drug called T-DM1 has been tested in human trials.  T-DM1 is the key new ingredient, it's a groundbreaking drug that attacks cancer cells directly, delivering a strong dose of chemotherapy.  In HER+ tumors the T-DM1 docks against HER+ protein and leaves the healthy cells alone.  Because it goes straigbht to the cancer cell, it can be given at a dose 100 to 1000 times higher than it could be given systemically.  T-DM may possibly be on the market later this year.  The FDA has fast-tracked the drug and it's expected to win the agency's approval at the end of February.  T-DM1, an antibody-drug conjugate, causes fewer and less severe side effects than standard cancer treatment.  The patient discussed was also given standard chemotherapy.  The doctor in charge of the Houston study hopes the next step will be to forgo standard chemotherapy drug and let the T-DM1 do it's work. 

Let us hope this will indeed happen and that those sisters of ours who will be diagnosed with HER+ cancers will be able to get this treatment.  And let us also hope that more and more successful research will be done, if not to conquer cancer (that, in my opinion is in the far distant future) but will make treatment easier and let us all live a long and productive life.

Margeaux