A new drug could extend the lives of patients suffering from advanced breast cancer by up to five years, it has been claimed.
According to the Huffington Post, researchers have found that using a drug called perjeta in combination with chemotherapy and herceptin could be an effective treatment for those diagnosed with aggressive secondary breast cancer, which had traditionally been hard to treat.
A trial into the effectiveness of the combination of drugs found that survival among women with previously untreated advanced HER2-positive breast cancer was extended by more than four and a half years.
Perjeta is a targeted treatment which works to block cancer cell growth and cell signalling and is not yet available through the HSE in Ireland.
The National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics has recommended that the HSE does not fund the drug for public patients as it would result in an additional treatment cost of about €74,000 per patient and a gross budget impact of about €39m over the next five years. However, a final decision has yet to be made by the HSE on the matter.
UK study lead Professor David Miles said that the results of the research had been “impressive” and showed “a magnitude of survival benefit which we have never seen before in advanced breast cancer, let alone this particular type, previously regarded as having a poor prognosis and being difficult to treat”.
“The observation that women with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer can live alongside their disease for so many years is frankly unprecedented. These data represent a significant step forward in the fight against breast cancer with combination therapies such as this paving the way for cancer treatments in the future.”
