Women with a small but aggressive cancerous tumor of the breast (type HER-2 positive) with no sign of metastasis, have a significant risk of the cancer coming back and spreading. But a new study published in the New England Journal of medicine shows that the risk of recurrence is amply reduced with combination therapies.
For this study, the first of its kind, a group of 406 stage 1 breast cancer patients with tumors no larger than 3 cm, without lymph node involvement, received a combination of paclitaxel and trastuzumab (Herceptin) for 12 weeks afterwards. removal of the tumor. Then the women took trastuzumab monotherapy for 9 months. They were then followed for 3 years. Period after which the recurrence-free survival rate was 98.7% thanks to these combination therapies. According to previous studies, the rate of recurrence-free survival of patients treated with chemotherapy alone ranges from 77.1% to 86.4%.
“This clinical trial is very convincing. It demonstrates that a combination of low-intensity chemotherapy with the Herceptin antibody (to block the multiplication of cancer cells, editor’s note) is a desirable standard care approach for small tumors less than or equal to 3 cm, ”explains Dr. Eric Winer of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts, the lead author of this study.
Read also
Cholesterol is said to increase the risk of breast cancer
Breast cancer: exposure to light complicates treatment
Breast cancer: a promising therapeutic vaccine
