Curing Breast Cancer: new horizons open up

[5 June 2007 - 14h11]
[mis à jour le 11 June 2007 à 16h24]

“Each year more than a million women across the world are diagnosed with breast cancer. It’s a public health issue of considerable magnitude”, points out Professor Brian Leyland-Jones (Emory University, Atlanta, United States). Speaking at the 43rd ASCO Meeting in Chicago he reiterated the pressing need to ensure that treatment parameters systematically include “an evaluation of the HER2 status of tumours to give women the best possible chance of a cure”. And there is indeed a great deal at stake.

“Each year in France over 11,000 women die as a result of metastased breast cancer”, explains Professor Jean-Yves Blay, Scientific Director of the Lyons Auvergne Rhône-Alpes Cancer Study Centre (CLARA). “These cancers are the primary cause of death among women aged 40 to 55. Yet in 20% to 25% of cases we see an overexpression of HER2. Which is a negative prognosis factor “both in terms of non-recurrent survival and overall survival.”

Targeted treatments offer effectiveness and better quality of life

However, on the breast cancer front there is encouraging news. In addition to surgery, often followed by radiotherapy and hormonal treatment for hormonodependant breast cancer, there have been considerable advances in chemotherapy during the last 15 years or so. The introduction in the early 1990s of Taxotere – a drug that impedes cell multiplication – marked a new and spectacular advance in treatment.

But the recent arrival of targeted therapies is the start of a new revolution. As their name suggests, they attack narrow targets. These may be malignant cells that need to be destroyed or may be one of their receptor sites. In this case the aim could be to lead them to self-destruct by re-establishing the cell death mechanism – known as apoptosis – or to starve them by preventing them from generating the blood vessels essential to their survival. This is known as angiogenesis control.

Today, treatments generally rely on complex combinations involving a number of these tools. This is because “if we simply treat breast cancer locally (with surgery and/or radiotherapy – editor’s note), we only achieve 20% survival at 5 years because of metastases”, stresses Xavier Pivot (Besançcon). “Whereas with well managed treatment we now achieve 80% genuine cures.”. Cures for which doctors are now able to give their patients scientific assurances… and not just patients – their insurers too!

Source : from our special correspondents in Chicago, Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), 1-5 June 2007

>> Cet article est aussi disponible en français

© 1996-2012 Destination Santé SAS - All Rights Reserved. No information contained on this server can be reproduced or retransmitted without prior written consent of Destination Santé. Offenders will be prosecuted in consideration of articles L 122-4 and L 335-3 of the Code of Intellectual Property, allowing up to two years' imprisonment and a 150,000 euros fine.