A drug developed by Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche as treatment for advanced breast cancer has significantly extended the lives of patients in a clinical trial at an unprecedented level, researchers revealed at the annual meeting of the European Society for Medical Oncology in Madrid, Spain on Sunday.
In the trial involving 808 patients diagnosed with HER2 positive breast cancer, a condition that makes up about 25 percent of all cases of breast cancer, those who were given Roche's drug Perjeta (pertuzumab) along with chemotherapy and an older medicine for treating breast cancer, Herceptin, lived almost 16 months longer on average compared with the patients who only received chemotherapy and Herceptin.
Researchers said that the prolonged length of survival in patients, who received Perjeta, is unprecedented for a drug used in treating metastatic breast cancer, meaning the cancer has already spread to other parts of the body, and may possibly even be the longest for any other type of cancer.
"These results are impressive," said study researcher David Miles, from the Mount Vernon Cancer Centre. "They show a magnitude of survival benefit which we have never seen before in advanced breast cancer, let alone this particular type, previously regarded as having a poor prognosis and being difficult to treat."
The result of the clinical trial is significant; the drug has improved the length of survival of the patients by over one year when cancer drugs typically lengthen the survival of patients with metastatic disease for only a few months. The 40.8 average survival time of patients in the control group was already impressive but this was significantly surpassed by 15.7 months in patients who received Perjeta with their median overall survival time of 56.5 months.
"The results, I think, are phenomenal," said study researcher Sandra Swain from the Washington Hospital Center. "The survival improvement of nearly 16 months ... is unprecedented among studies of metastatic breast cancer."
Perjeta is designed to be used with Herceptin for about 20 percent of breast cancers marked by an abundance of the protein HER2, which stimulates the growth of cancer cells. In the clinical trial, those who were given the drug experienced higher incidence of rash, diarrhea and reduced white blood cell counts.
Roche's drug is now considered a standard care in the U.S. following its approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2012 but the results of the study could boost the usage of the drug. Perjeta currently costs about $5,900 in the U.S. while Herceptin costs approximately $5,300 a month.
