A new combo to combat cancer

A cancer trial using a new combination of medicine has shown astonishing results.

Due to a new combo of medication, certain types of breast cancer had significantly shrunk in just 11 days. Watch the video below.

European Breast Cancer Conference

At the European Breast Cancer Conference in Amsterdam last March, professor Nigel Bundred presented research that showed the effectiveness of a combination of two medicines when used on women with HER2 positive breast cancer.

Trastuzumab and Lapatinib have been used in the battle against cancer before, but never in combination with each other. The pair of drugs used before chemo and surgery, showed a significant decrease: 17% of the cancers showed dramatically shrunken tumors. And 11% had disappeared within eleven days!

The drugs combat a protein called HER2, which affects growth and division of cancer cells.

Breast Cancer: The Common Cancer

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women worldwide. Early detectionis of the utmost importance and treatments include medicine, chemo and surgery. With this possible new treatment, chemo and surgery could become obsolete. As Prof. Bundred says;

“This has ground-breaking potential because it allows us to identify agroup of patients who, within 11 days, have had their tumours disappear with anti-HER2 therapy alone and who potentially may not require subsequent chemotherapy. This offers the opportunity to tailor treatment for each individual woman.”

Long Term Effects

Though the long term effects still need to be studied, the combination appears to be a major step forward!

Chair of EBCC-10, Professor Fatima Cardoso, said: “The results of this important trial confirm previous initial suggestions that most probably there are patients who can be treated with dualblockade (two anti-HER2 agents simultaneously) alone, without chemotherapy. This study proposes a simple wayto identify those patients very early on, which could help spare them unnecessary chemotherapy. What is now indispensable is to confirm if these early responses translate into better or equal long-term survival.”