at AACR advances in breast cancer conference

[Lani]

Dr. Winer gave a talk on the treatment of her2+ breast cancer and stated that he sees a day in the not too distant future when a subset of her2+ breast cancer patients will be treated without any chemotherapy ie, just with targeted therapy or ADC (trojan horse combos like TDM-1)

He predicted pertuzumab and tdm-1 would be approved within a year or two and a poster was presented by a researcher from Emory showing a cure in mice of her2+ breast cancer with a combination (trio) of tdm-1+ pertuzumab+ avastin. Not only did the tumors disappear with this treatment they did not come back in the three months they looked before they "sacrificed" them.

All the more reason not to let the FDA or insurance companies stop the use of avastin until they determine which subgroup of breast cancer patients it helps.

I can see that this trio treatment is exceedingly pricy, but if they only need to treat for a month or two (or less) and it never recurs--they need to determine the minimal treatment time to affect the "cure" it should pass muster with the bean counters.