Lapatinib is First Treatment for Rare, Aggressive Cancer
In the first international, multi-center clinical trial of a therapy specific to inflammatory breast cancer (IBC), researchers found that an experimental biologic agent, lapatinib, successfully and specifically treats this rare and aggressive form of cancer....
NEW YORK DEC 18, 2006 (Reuters Health) - Epirubicin-based induction and maintenance chemotherapy leads to relatively high long-term survival rates in women with unilateral inflammatory breast cancer, French researchers report in the December 1st issue of Cancer......
By E.J. Mundell
HealthDay Reporter Fri Dec 15, 2:01 PM ET
FRIDAY, Dec. 15 (HealthDay News) -- For years, experts have noted that people who take nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) for pain relief also lower their risk for a variety of cancers.
Now, scientists believe they know why that happens.
New research shows that NSAIDs -- which include aspirin, ibuprofen, Aleve and Celebrex -- boost the level of a cellular molecule that causes malignant cells to die off.
The finding "opens up our understanding of how anti-inflammatory drugs are effective against cancer cells. This could also lead to new drug development and of monitoring drugs' effect on cancer cells," said study senior author Towia Libermann, director of the Genomics Center at Beth
Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
His team published its findings in the Dec. 15 issue of Cancer Research......
LONDON, Dec 14 (Reuters) - GlaxoSmithKline Plc's (GSK.L: Quote, Profile , Research) experimental cancer pill Tykerb works in women newly diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer when given before surgery, researchers said on Thursday.
Results of a small Phase II study presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in Texas showed a high clinical response from daily treatment with Tykerb for two weeks, followed by weekly paclitaxel, or Taxol, for 12 weeks.......
Lapatinib Effective for Inflammatory Breast Cancer: Presented at SABCS
By Charlene Laino
SAN ANTONIO, TX -- December 14, 2006 -- The small-molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor lapatinib appears to be effective for the treatment of women with aggressive, inflammatory breast cancer, a prospective phase 2 study suggests.
Massimo Cristofanilli, MD, associate professor, department of breast medical oncology, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, reported the findings here on December 14th at the 29th Annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS).
Dr. Cristofanilli and colleagues enrolled 35 women who were a median of 53 years of age and diagnosed with previously untreated inflammatory breast cancer. The women were divided into 2 groups: cohort A included 30 women whose tumors overexpressed human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2); cohort B included 5 women whose tumors were epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-positive but who did not overexpress human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)........
A new experimental cancer drug called Tykerb has been shown to slow the progression of metastatic Her-2 positive breast cancer after Herceptin treatment has stopped working in patients, according to researchers from GlaxoSmithKline at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting last June in Atlanta. "Tykerb works like a Trojan horse; it gets inside the cancer cells and blocks growth pathways," says Steven Stein, M.D., director of clinical development at GSK's oncology medicine development center.
Tykerb is the first targeted therapy that has the potential to reach the brain in order to treat brain metastases, which affect one-third of Her-2 positive women. Results from a trial show that women being treated with Herceptin supplemented with Tykerb experienced up to a 30 percent decline in the size of their brain tumors.
The researchers believe that the small molecular size of Tykerb allows the drug to cross the blood-brain barrier, which controls the passage of substances between the blood and the central nervous system. This enables the drug to reach sites of metastases that drugs with larger molecules, like Herceptin, cannot. Tykerb also shows potential in treating inflammatory breast cancer.
A study of about 60 IBC patients, half of whom were Her-2 positive, found that Tykerb slowed cancer progression in 62 percent of women in the Her-2 positive group, according to results presented by GSK at the ASCO conference. While these preliminary results are promising, Tykerb is still an experimental drug and is not available for use outside of clinical trials. If the FDA approves it, Tykerb may be available to patients early in 2007, says Stein.
From www.mamm.com
