StemCell Therapy

A breast cancer drug that can provide a last resort option to patients who have run out of treatments has been granted accelerated approval from the Food and Drug Administration, a move that could provide a new standard of care for hundreds of thousands of women with the disease.

The drug, called Enhertu, was recently granted approval for patients who have received two or more prior treatments for inoperable or metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer, a type of cancer that learns to resist the drugs designed to attack it.

The drug is given intravenously and will be available by prescription in the United States in the coming weeks. The drug can offer less severe side effects than chemotherapy for some patients.

Its always really hard to know the options are getting thinner. Theres a lot we can do for HER2-positive breast cancer, though we do reach a time where there is little else we have to offer and I think having a drug like this provides a lot of hope, said Dr. Eric Winer, director of the breast cancer program at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Cheryl Osimo, executive director of the Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition, was diagnosed with stage two HER2-positive breast cancer in 1991 and was given a poor prognosis.

It was a life-changing experience for me in more ways than one, Osimo said. Her cancer did not resist treatment, and six months of chemotherapy along with six weeks of radiation proved successful in beating the deadly disease.

Im one of the lucky ones, there are many women who are not so lucky, so those who have to move on to try other treatments, to learn there are options where there are less painful side effects is good news, said Osimo.

About one in five breast cancers are HER2-positive. The drug works by attaching chemotherapy to antibodies that offer a targeted attack on the cancer cells.

Dr. Michael Misialek, associate chair of pathology at Newton-Wellesley Hospital, said Enhertu offers a new standard of care for patients running out of alternatives.

It gives patients another option, it gives oncologists another arrow in their tool kit to fight the cancer and the big picture here is that treatment of breast cancer is following the pathway more and more of personalized medicine, said Misialek, who is also the medical adviser to the Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition.

Winer also noted a shift in cancer care with the approval of groundbreaking drugs like Enhertu, saying, I can imagine a time when we wont be giving standard chemotherapy.

Winer said new treatments are giving patients hope, This is an example of the fact that if they just hang in there and manage to do well for however long they can with the drug they have, there may be something else coming around the corner.

Read the original:
FDA approval of new breast cancer drug offers hope to patients with few options - Boston Herald

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