For women with HER2-positive breast cancer that has metastasized to the brain, lapatinib could prolong survival, according to research published recently in the British Journal of Cancer.
A group of 43 women with HER2-positive breast cancer that had spread to the brain was studied by researchers and the Medical University of Vienna. Within the group, 28 women had been treated with Herceptin and 15 had also received lapatinib. Survival for the women treated with Herceptin averaged 13 months. However, more than 50% of those patients who also received lapatinib were still alive after 2 years.
A control group of 37 women who received no targeted treatment was used for comparison. In this group, women treated with chemotherapy survived for 9 months on average, and the survival for those who received radiotherapy averaged 3 months.
HER2-positive breast cancer is more likely to spread to the brain, and unlike other drugs, lapatinib is a small-molecule agent that can potentially cross the blood-brain barrier.
According to Professor Guenther Steger, study author based at the Medical University of Vienna, “These results are very promising, but we’ve only studied a small and very specific group of women. We now need to look at the effect of lapatinib in a larger group of women with HER2-positive breast cancer to see if the same improvements in survival are seen.”
Source: Cancer Research UK.