The approach to oncology treatment that has made up in place for decencies is starting to yield to an arsenal of long-run clinical studies, genetic tests and novel drugs that aim cancer cells and their substructure.
Traditional chemo side effects and breast cancer drugs work by interfering with the entire body's system of cell reproduction, causing harsh side effects like fatigue and hair loss.
Treatment For Breast Cancer In Women
Since the completion of the human genome studies in 2003, scientists have made advancement in unlocking the genetically foundation of a range of diseases, including breast cancer. That has paved the way for genetic examination, likewise as drugs that halt specific pathways that cancer cells use to develop and multiply.Such treatment for breast cancer in women targeted cancer drugs, which sometimes prevent the need for chemotherapy, are being sold by companies ranging from Pfizer Inc , the world's largest drug maker, to Ariad Pharmaceuticals Inc , which early on this year set up its first drug, to treat leukemia.
At the same time, mass studies that consider whether some types of patients are better off with less therapy are giving doctors more confidence to hold back on using traditional cancer drugs for treatment for breast cancer in women.
Laurie Levin, a woman of 64, was successfully treated in her 20s for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, but faced a treatment dilemma after being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005, since the earlier radiation and chemotherapy had already elevated her risk of building up heart problems or leukemia. A $4,000 genetically test indicated that her breast cancer was unlikely to come back, providing the trust to undergo a lumpectomy and avoid chemotherapy.
The use of Oncotype DX test, which examines genes involved in tumor recurrence, has cut the use of chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer in women patients by 20 percent over the past eight years in U.S. Based on its maker, Genomic Health Inc . The company recently launched a similar test configured to assess whether men with prostate cancer need to undergo surgery or radiation. Tests and studies can elucidate treatment, but costs remain on the upswing because the latest drugs are really expensive, with monthly price tags frequently in the thousands of dollars. By 2016 annual global sales of cancer drugs will nearly triple, to $88 billion from a decade earlier, according to IMS Health.
The "less is more" approach to cancer will be one highlight of ASCO's annual meeting in Chicago that commences at the end of this month. On Wednesday, ASCO released thousands of abstractions on new clinical test of cancer treatments.
One big, long-term study discovered that most men diagnosed with early-stage seminoma, a common type of testicular cancer, did fine with no treatment following surgery to remove the tumors. Cure rates for the disease have always been rather high. Several European countries, including Denmark where the study was carried out, monitor seminoma patients for any relapse before further treatment. In the United States, about half of early-stage patients are still given radiation or chemotherapy, according to ASCO.
Physicians state it is complicated to quantify in statistics, but there is arising recognition that less is more in terms of potentially toxic cancer treatments. The alternative treatment for breast cancer approach is especially important for young patients who will have many years ahead of them after beating an initial bout of cancer.
A study introduced earlier this year at an ASCO meeting in Florida establish similar survival rates for men with high-risk prostate cancer who received radiation and either 18 or 36 months of hormone therapy. The findings advise the therapy, which causes substantial side effects, could be given for less than the current standard of 24 to 36 months.
Another recent study out of the Duke Cancer Institute in Durham, North Carolina, found that survival odds for women with early-stage breast cancer who underwent breast-preserving surgery such as lumpectomy were as good as, or even better than, the odds for women who had mastectomies.
The first-ever study demonstrating that a type of leukemia could be cured without using chemotherapy was released in December. The Italian-German study found that a combination of a derivative of vitamin A, known as ATRA, and arsenic trioxide, a newer drug, worked as well as ATRA and chemotherapy in patients newly diagnosed with acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL).
A recent trial carried out in France discovered that omitting standard chemotherapy, which has been linked to heart damage, from the initial treatment of a type of childhood leukemia did not reduce survival outcomes. The priciest therapies are configured to take advantage of genetic mutations associated with cancer cells, some of them happened only in a small percentage of patients.
A new drug for melanoma, BRAF inhibitor Zelboraf from Roche Holding AG , is designed to work by targeting a specific genetic mutation found in about half of all melanomas. Patients are first tested to see if they have it. Pfizer's lung-cancer drug Xalkori, which targets a mutation in the ALK gene, works in about 4 percent of lung cancer patients. It also has been effective as a treatment for a rare but aggressive type of childhood lymphoma.
Learn What Breast Cancer is and How to Deal with It.