Cancer Digest

Drug doubles time to progression in advanced breast cancer

REUTERS ­– April 6, 2014 – Women with advanced breast cancer had their disease progression halt or slow for twice as long when a new type of targeted drug was added to their hormonal therapy, compared to those treated with hormonal therapy alone. UCLA researchers reported the results of the mid-stage trial at the American Association of Cancer Research annual meeting this week in San Diego. Women whose tumors were responsive to hormones (HR-positive) had progression-free survival of 20.2 months when treated with the new drug, palbociclib plus letrozole. Those in the standard therapy receiving letrozole alone had progression-free survival of 10.2 months. The palbociclib group had an overall survival of 37.5 months compared to 33.3 months for the letrozole-alone group. That difference was not considered statistically significant.

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