New study may help improve odds for breast cancer patients

WXYZ - A small study offers promising news for breast cancer patients.

It involves two drugs used before surgery to stop the growth of tumors. They are often used alone.  The study however found perhaps they should be used together.

The anti-HER2 drugs involved in the study are Herceptin and Tykerb.   They are used to treat HER2 positive breast cancer. 

The study looked at whether patients had any microscopic signs of cancer after surgery.  It found when patients were given just Herceptin, 30% had no microscopic signs of breast cancer.  When only Tykerb was used the number was 25%.   The groundbreaking news came when they looked at the numbers for patients who took both medications.  Of them, 51% had no signs of breast cancer after treatment. 

This is the first study where researchers have looked at whether combining these therapies works. 

It was a small study involving fewer than 500 people, but because of the promising results a larger study is being started.  It will look at how 8,000 patients respond to treatment with these drugs. 

"If that study's results confirm our current findings, the implications could be profound for the way we design clinical trials, suggesting that we could answer important questions with much smaller trials," said José Baselga, MD, PhD in a press release. 

Dr, Baselga is chief of Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer Center and led the study.