Being that breast cancer is one of most dangerous diseases and leading causes of death in the United States, researchers have been endlessly trying to find new remedies. Now, there is an exciting new treatment drug in store.
Reuters reports on a new treatment option for breast cancer patients that your doctor could be telling you about for your plan. Experts are saying for all patients to research this new drug.
Pfizer, announced on Wednesday the first formal late-stage trial of its approved treatment for an advanced breast cancer form of breast cancer. The drug’s name is Ibrance. Experts stopped the clinical trials and approved of the drug was early after the medicine met its objective of delaying progression of the disease in previously treated breast cancer patients.
“Patients taking Ibrance in combination with AstraZeneca Plc's Faslodex (fulvestrant), a widely used treatment to block estrogen, were deemed to have fared better in terms of disease progression than those taking Faslodex alone. The trial enrolled patients whose breast cancer was classified as estrogen-receptor positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-negative (ER+/HER2-),” according to Reuters.
The Food and Drug Administration also approved of Ibrance in February for a similar treatment plan. The approval for using Ibrance for this treatment plan was quickly given as experts saw that Ibrance was more effective at treating advanced breast cancer than the current treatment drug Femara (letrozole).
How does Ibrance work?
The medicine works by stopping two enzymes, cyclin-dependent kinase 4 and 6, which are used in cell growth, without them more cancer cells cannot grow.
Fox news also reported on the new drug stating that the new treatment option could be monumental for breast cancer patients.
“A number of other drug makers, including Eli Lilly and Co, are testing drugs that block the same or similar enzymes, as potential treatments for various cancers,” according to Fox.
CBS news reported on new treatment options for breast cancer and the importance of getting a second opinion before choosing a treatment plan.
An actress who recently underwent a double mastectomy and then reconstructive surgery told the press that if she had not gotten a second opinion her cancer may have gotten ignored and possibly would have spread. Dr. Elisa Port, co-director of the Mount Sinai Hospital Dubin Breast Cancer Center in New York, told CBS that telling patients to get a second opinion is excellent advice. She also said that perhaps not only should patients get a second opinion from a surgeon but also from a pathologist.
Dr. Port also said,
“There's a whole team of people behind that surgeon that form the surgeon's team and the team is really only as strong as the weakest link. The pathologist is really the person who looks at the tissue under the microscope and feeds the surgeon the information that will tell them, what will dictate care from there on in.”
Dr. Port explained that second opinions are important because there are clear-cut normal, which no one would miss, and clear-cut cancer that no one would miss, but then there is a broad spectrum of in between stuff that is subject to interpretation and deep analysis.
