Treatments

A decrease in circulating tumor cells (CTCs) shows that chemotherapy is working in patients with metastatic breast cancer, according to the results of a Georgetown University study reported at the 2007 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. Periodic measurement of CTCs can indicate how well chemotherapy is working, allowing doctors to switch patients to a more effective course of treatment if there is poor treatment response.

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, are working to predict the likelihood that breast cancer will spread to other parts of the body. The findings, published in the journal Molecular Systems Biology, offer new mechanistic insights into breast cancer metastasis -- and who will respond to chemotherapy.

The results of several studies confirm previous reports suggesting that chemotherapy offers little or no survival benefits for young women with estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast cancers and, if given, should not be the sole second-phase or adjuvant therapy.

The widely used chemotherapy drug Taxol does not work for the most common form of breast cancer and helps far fewer patients than has been believed, According to a University of Michigan study. In the study, Taxol did the most good for women who had overactive HER-2 genes — the target of the newer breast cancer drug Herceptin. These women were about 40% less likely to have a recurrence if they received Taxol.

Data from large randomized clinical trials published in the November issue of Current Opinion in Oncology have indicated that the third-generation aromatase inhibitors (letrozole, anastrozole and exemestane) are more effective than tamoxifen as adjuvant therapy in postmenopausal women with operable breast cancer when given either initially, or sequentially following initial tamoxifen therapy,