Exciting news! There is a new drug for the treatment of Breast Cancer that is now being tested and is showing wonderfully promising results. In fact, the US Food and Drug administration has felt that the early results with the testing of this new medicine were so promising that it has granted this drug what is known as “FAST TRACK” approval. This means that it will move things along as quickly as possible towards fully approving this new and promising drug as a new treatment for Breast Cancer.
BSI-201 (as the drug is currently known, until the medication eventually receives a generic and a brand name for use in pharmacies across the country, is especially designed to be used in women who have what is known as “Triple Negative” breast cancers. These are breast cancers that are negative for the receptors known as the Estrogen receptors, the Progesterone receptors and the Her-2 receptors. Breast cancers that do not have any of these three receptors are felt to be more aggressive than ones with these receptors. The way that this new BSI-201 drug works against the breast cancer is by blocking an enzyme that the cancer cell uses to repair itself known as the PARP enzyme. Thus, when BSI-201 blocks that repair enzyme, then the cancer cannot readily repair itself and thus more readily dies.
An advantage that comes with having one or more of the receptors mentioned above is that it is possible to treat women with breast cancers who have positive receptors with anti-hormone therapies such as Tamoxien or a medication known as Herceptin which is for women who have breast cancers that are Her-2 positive tumors. These women with “Triple Negative” breast cancers, however, cannot benefit from treatment with either anti-hormonal therapy such as Tamoxifen or from anti Her-2 therapy known as Herceptin.
That is why it is so very exciting to have a new medication which can now treat these women with “Triple Negative” and thus otherwise rather difficult to treat forms of breast cancer.
An early study, carried out by the Drug company known as Sanofi-Aventis (which is the company that is making this new medication) has shown that women with advanced “Triple Negative” breast cancer treated with this new medication lived, on average, at least a year (12 months) from the time when this new medicine was started in their treatment compared with an average survival of only about 7 months for women who only received the usual standard chemotherapy medications. That means that women who received treatment with this new medicine lived at least 5 months longer than women who did not receive this new medication.
Of course, these are early results with this new medication and more study is needed; however thus far these early results are very encouraging.
These and other concepts are covered in this very easy to understand language in the Breast Cancer audio CD that is available on the web site called www.CancerInPlainEnglish.com