AbbVie drug shows promise against difficult type of breast cancer
Women with an especially deadly type of breast cancer who received a treatment regimen containing an experimental AbbVie Inc drug prior to surgery are likely to have a significantly better response than those who get a standard chemotherapy regimen, according to data from a clinical trial.
Patients with so-called triple negative breast cancer, who tend to be younger and have a very poor prognosis, appeared to have double the response rate to the regimen containing AbbVie's veliparib in a new type of study that exploits advances in molecular understanding of the disease, researchers found.
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In that arm of the study involving 71 high risk patients, the researchers were testing to see whether the treatment, given before surgery, could eliminate any evidence of invasive cancer in breast tissue and lymph nodes removed during subsequent surgery - a measurement known as pathologic complete response (PCR).
They found an estimated PCR in 52 percent of women who were treated with AbbVie's veliparib plus the chemotherapies carboplatin and paclitaxel. That compared with a 26 percent PCR rate in those who just got standard paclitaxel. Both groups also received anthracycline-based chemotherapy prior to surgery.
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Triple-negative tumors - about 15 percent of breast cancers - lack estrogen, progesterone or HER2 receptors needed for most drugs to work. If the tumor does not respond to chemotherapy, there are currently no alternatives and the typical survival rate after recurrence is less than two years.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/sns-rt-us-abbvie-breastcancer-20131213,0,2097219.story
