How much to expect from "experimental" T-DM1 drug which was compared with Tykerb/Xeloda, a combination drug who's evaluation was halted early because of superior performance.
Some of the highlights:
50% improvement in PFS, from 6.4 months to 9.6 months.
absolute difference in overall survival of 7.7% at one year and projected 18% at 2 years, i.e. at two 18 more persons will remain alive on this therapy.
adverse events favoring t-dm1 included diarrhea (20.7% vs 1.6%), hand-foot syndrome (16.4% vs 0) and vomiting (4.5% vs 0.8%). Not surprisingly, there was a higher treatment discontinuation arm in the control arm as well (11 vs 6%). Five deaths were recorded on the control arm vs 1 on T-DM1 arm.
More detailed information to be found looking at numerous trial reports on the web.
http://www.oncolink.org/conferences/...ss=357&id=2237