Article: New drugs fight metastatic breast cancer

Canadian scientists have determined newer drug therapies, especially aromatase inhibitors, improve the survival of women with metastatic breast cancer.

The study -- led by Dr. Stephen Chia of the University of British Columbia -- is the first to demonstrate that drugs available since the 1990s have had a significant impact on population-based metastatic breast cancer survival rates.

The research confirms clinical trials that showed survival improved by approximately 30 percent as systemic therapy became more widely used.

Currently, women with metastatic breast cancer survive an average of approximately 24 months. That marks a significant improvement from the estimated 18-month survival noted during the early 1980s, the researchers said.

"Our population-based study of a large cohort of women with a recent diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer is the first to demonstrate a significant improvement in survival over time," the scientists wrote. "While the study does not definitively attribute these improvements to a single therapy, the greatest differences in survival were associated with the introduction of the aromatase inhibitors, docetaxel and trastuzumab in the later two cohorts."

The research is reported online in the journal Cancer and will appear in the Sept. 1 print issue.

source:www.sciencedaily.com