The results are significant because the use of immunotherapy for cancer treatment is expanding, and clinical trials of immunotherapy have routinely excluded patients with autoimmune disease, a population estimated to be between 20 to 50 million people in the USA, said first author Dr. Saad Khan, Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine in the Division of Hematology and Oncology.
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But some experts were cautious about predicting changes in treatment strategies. All forward-looking statements included in this press release involve risks and uncertainties that could cause the Company’s actual results to differ materially from the anticipated results and expectations expressed in these forward-looking statements.
‘In general I would think that women who had riskier cancers – higher stage, more nodal involvement would look to these data and think they are compelling for continuing longer durations of treatment out to ten or 15 years.
GIVING chemotherapy after radiotherapy delays further growth of a rare type of brain tumour, increasing the number of patients alive at five years from 44 per cent to 56 per cent. It enrolled 1,918 women, some of whom took an aromatase inhibitor called letrozole for 10 years, while the rest were given placebo pills.
The study by Dr Paul Goss of MA general hospital and colleagues was presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting.
A new study reveals that older women with breast cancer who have an extended anti-estrogen therapy up to 10 years have lower risk of recurrence and lesser chance of contralateral breast cancer, compared to those who only took the hormonal drugs for five years. He said: “Aromatase inhibitors are now readily available around the world and therefore our results will further improve the outcome of women with breast cancer globally”. Calculated another way, 95 percent of the women in the letrozole group experienced disease-free survival, compared to 91 percent in the placebo group.
The study did not show an improvement in survival rates, as patients had not been followed for long enough, but scientists expect this to come as “night follows day”.
VBL Therapeutics (Nasdaq:VBLT), a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of first-in-class treatments for cancer, today announced the presentation of updated clinical results from a Phase 1/2 trial of VB-111 in the treatment of patients with recurrent platinum resistant ovarian cancer.
After three years, 11 patients in the group on a normal, healthy diet again developed breast cancer, “The Mirror” reported.
“There were side effects to treatment including loss of libido, hot flushes and vaginal dryness”. In general, they stop the cancer from progressing only for a few months, the researchers said.
“It’s an option but not the standard”, said Dr. Eric Winer, director of the breast cancer program at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and an author of the study. But 10 years of the drugs made no difference to survival. “It is very reassuring for those women who want a longer duration of adjuvant endocrine therapy that they can expect a preserved quality of life”.
At present, health care providers have been prescribing aromatase inhibitor, such as letrozole, as a 5-year up-front monotherapy for hormone-receptor-positive early breast cancer in postmenopausal women.
‘For millions of women around the world these data will support the practice of anti-oestrogen therapy (aromatase inhibitors) which will reduce the risk of their cancer coming back’.
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Women taking this path first receive traditional chemotherapy to reduce the size of their tumor, and then undergo surgery to have as much of their cancer removed as possible, Dizon explained.
