Another possible option when option are few?

[eric]

I know this article is geared to intestinal cancer, but I found it so exciting and it mentions breast so I thought it might be helpful to anyone with limited options...

http://www.canada.com/health/fromthe...8-750ac2cd40ce

[Lolly]

Thanks, Eric, it's good to stay on top of new treatment options even in other cancers, because more than one drug that was originally approved for another cancer has "crossed over" into breast cancer...Navelbine for one, Avastin for another.

<3 Lolly

[lu ann]

Thanks Eric, I'm saving this article for my friend who was dx. with colon cancer last spring. She just finished 12 bi-weekly chemo tx. and will be on avastin for 6 months. Hopefully she won't need anything else, but it's good to keep up on new meds if needed. Blessings, Lu Ann.

This drug Sutent was studied in metastatic breast cancer in women who had lots of prior chemo. Data was presented last MAY at ASCO that showed benefit.

The company is waiting for approval in renal and gastric cancer probably next year and in the meantime has a compassionate use program in place for these types of cancer. Yet they continue to refuse the same program for women with breast cancer and won't say why. It seems discriminatory to me.....

Heard about this at a conference on Targeted Therapies in July

Here is an article from ASCO in May:
Meeting: 2005 ASCO Annual Meeting
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Category: Breast Cancer
SubCategory: Other



Ixabepilone (BMS-247550) plus trastuzumab combination chemotherapy induces synergistic antitumor efficacy in HER2 dependent breast cancers and is accompanied by modulation of molecular response markers
Abstract No: 561
Author(s): F. Y. Lee, S. Castaneda, I. Inigo, D. Kan, B. Paul, M. Wen, C. Fairchild, E. Clark, H. Lee
Abstract: Background: Ixabepilone (Ixa) belongs to a class of structurally novel, microtubule-stabilizing agents that exert their antimitotic action by binding to tubulin with a binding mode that is distinct from the taxanes. Ixa is non-cross-resistant with the taxanes in preclinical human primary tumor models. In Phase II trials Ixa exhibited robust activities in breast cancers, with or without prior taxanes. Here we determined the activity of combined treatment with Ixa plus trastuzumab in preclinical breast cancer models, and identified potential pharmacogenomic correlates that predict responsiveness to the trastuzumab/Ixa combination Methods: BT474 and KPL-4 human breast cancer cell lines were used; both express the receptor tyrosine kinase HER2 and are dependent on HER2 signalling for growth. Effects of drug treatments in vitro were determined by a vital dye uptake assay (MTS) or a colony formation assay. In vivo, BT474 and KPL4 were grown as SC tumors in mice. Gene expression profiling was performed using the Affymetrix HG-U133 arrays Results: In cell culture, trastuzumab was cytostatic and inhibited the proliferation of BT474 and KPL-4 in a dose-dependent manner from 0.1-5 ?g/mL. Ixa in contrast was cytotoxic to both BT474 and KPL-4 cells with IC50s of 13.7 and 9.2 nM, respectively. Co-treatment of BT474 and KPL-4 cells with trastuzumab plus Ixa augmented the cytotoxic potency by more than 2-fold over Ixa alone (P<0.05). Treatment of KPL-4 tumored mice (n=8/group) with trastuzumab plus Ixa produced synergistic therapeutic effects. Trastuzumab treatment alone (10 mg/kg) produced no complete (CR) or partial (PR) response. Ixabepilone alone at its MTD (4 mg/kg) yielded 1 PR, 1 CR. The combined regimen produced 8 CR (4 of which were cured). Gene expression profiling revealed that trastuzumab treatment modulated the expression of several predictive marker genes, including the down-regulation of microtubule-associated proteins, tau Conclusions: Trastuzumab and Ixabepilone combination produced therapeutic synergism, which may be explained by changes in expression of predictive gene markers of drug response