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Finnish new treatment

reduces breast cancer

deaths by one third

By Yan

____January 29th, 2010

CHINA VIEW

Finnish treatment reduces breast cancer

 

Finnish cancer researchers

have had an important

breakthrough in the

treatment of breast cancer,

according to Finnish media

reports on Thursday.

The new treatment developed in

Finland reduces the renewal risk

of aggressive breast cancer and

the consequent deaths by as

much as a third.

In the treatment the Finnish

researchers targeted a protein

called HER2.

HER2 is a growth factor protein,

which transmits growth signals

to breast cancer cells.

The protein is the cause of the

so-called HER-positive breast

cancer.

This cancer type is often difficult

and aggressive and it has a strong

tendency to send metastases to

other parts of the body.

About 15 percent of all the

breast cancer patients suffer

from this aggressive type.

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If the renewal risk of

the cancer is significant,

cytostatic treatment is

commenced after the operation.

This lowers the risk of renewal

of the cancer by 40 percent

among patients under

the age of 50.

The risk of dying of the illness

is cut down by 30 percent.

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For the HER-positive

breast cancer patients,

the Finnish researchers also

gave trastuzumab in connection

with their cytostatic treatment.

Trastuzumab blocks the effects

of the growth factor protein

HER2 by binding to it.

Previously similar treatments

have been experimented with

elsewhere in regimens that have

lasted for a year and a half.

What is distinctive to the

Finnish regimen is its shortness.

The treatment only

lasts for nine weeks.

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“The new treatment form,

trastuzumab,

is one of the greatest advances

in the past 15-20 years in the

field of breast cancer research,”

said Petri Bono,

chief physician at the

Department of Medical Oncology,

Helsinki University Hospital.

The Finnish study’s results

were astoundingly good.

Five years after contracting

the illness,

92.5 percent of the patients

were still alive without the

re-emergence of the cancer.

The risks of renewal of the

cancer or deaths caused by

it were reduced by a third.

Encouraged by the results,

a large-scale international

follow- up research program

has been launched.

Breast cancer is the most

common form of cancer

among women.

Around 1.3 million women

around the globe contract

the illness each year.

Around 4,100 Finnish women

will contract breast cancer

each year.

 

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