Targeted therapy drug helps women with aggressive breast cancer live longer

A study led by UCLA researchers found that adding ribociclib, a targeted therapy drug, to standard hormone therapy significantly improves overall survival in postmenopausal women with advanced hormone-receptor positive/HER2- breast cancer, one of the most common types of the disease.The findings also show the combination treatment is beneficial at the time of recurrence and should become a first-line option in postmenopausal women with HR+/HER2- advanced breast cancer.The study was published today in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented earlier this year at the European Society for Medical Oncology Congress in Barcelona, Spain.“Many people argue that the first type of treatment women with this type of metastatic cancer should receive is some other form of hormonal therapy and then wait to see if they respond to that treatment,” said senior author Dr. Dennis Slamon, chair of hematology-oncology and director of clinical and translational research at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. “But we found there’s a significant difference when you use the combination of ribociclib with hormone therapy as the first line of therapy. There is absolutely no reason to wait to give women this treatment. This shou ld be the new standard.”Ribociclib is a drug that belongs to a class of CDK4/6 inhibitors that works by blocking the activity of proteins called cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 enzymes, which promote cell division and cancer growth.The current results b...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news