Researchers drop first ‘smart bomb’ on breast cancer
In a key test involving nearly 1,000 women with very advanced disease, the experimental treatment extended by several months the time women lived without their cancer getting worse, doctors reported yesterday at a cancer conference in Chicago.
More importantly, the treatment seems likely to improve survival; it will take more time to know for sure. After two years, 65% of women who received it were still alive versus 47% of those in a comparison group given two standard cancer drugs. That margin fell just short of the very strict criteria researchers set for stopping the study and declaring the new treatment a winner, and they hope the benefit becomes more clear with time. In fact, so many women on the new treatment are still alive that researchers cannot yet determine average survival for the group.
