for Chelee, Ceesun...hot off the press NY Times herceptin+tykerb great results!

[Lani]

Novel Drug Combo Extends Breast Cancer Survival


By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: December 11, 2009
Filed at 1:35 p.m. ET

SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- Women with very advanced breast cancer may have a new treatment option. Doctors say that a combination of two drugs that more precisely target tumors significantly extended the lives of women who had stopped responding to other treatments.

The study is the first big test of combining Herceptin and Tykerb (TIE-curb). In a study of 300 patients, women receiving both drugs lived 20 weeks longer than those given Tykerb alone. Doctors expect the combo to make an even bigger difference for women with less advanced disease.

The medicines aim at a protein that is made in abnormally large quantities in about one-fourth of all breast cancers. One drug blocks the protein inside a cell and the other does the same on the cell's surface.