A New Drug From Sea Sponge For The Treatment Of Severe Breast Cancer

A New Drug From Sea Sponge For The Treatment Of Severe Breast Cancer.
A novel chemotherapy anaesthetize made from a Davy Jones's locker sponge extended the lives of women with metastatic breast cancer by about 2,5 months, researchers report. The encouraging finding on the drug, known as eribulin, was presented Sunday at the annual assembly of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago. "We have a major need for fresh therapies," noted study author Dr Christopher Twelves. "We see a statistically significant promote in overall survival in a situation where we rarely see this sort of improvement".

So "Eribulin targets the mechanisms by which the cells divide, which is novel from previous agents," explained Twelves, who is a professor of clinical cancer pharmacology and oncology and make a beeline for of the Clinical Cancer Research Groups at the Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine and St James' Institute of Oncology in Leeds, UK. More than 750 women were randomized to come into either eribulin or a "treatment of physician's choice," the persist because there isn't a standard care for this type of cancer. In almost all cases, it was another chemotherapy.

The study included women who had already been treated extensively for their cancer, with the norm patient already having undergone four chemotherapies. The researchers blast a 23 percent improvement in median survival when women took eribulin, with the median survival for those in the eribulin heap at just over 13 months vs 10,7 months in the treatment-of -choice group. "These results potentially substantiate eribulin as a new and effective treatment for women with heavily pretreated bosom cancer," said Twelves, who disclosed financial ties with Eisai, which makes eribulin.

Also featured at the intersection Sunday, Italian researchers report that liver biopsies can expose whether a breast cancer that has spread through the body has changed its cellular characteristics, such as estrogen-receptor status, progesterone-receptor significance or HER2 status. These tumor properties often dictate the type of treatment a woman receives, intention that some women may benefit from switching therapy if the characteristics of their cancer change.