Breast cancer drug that cuts out surgery

Already used to keep the cancer at bay after surgeons remove a tumour, the drug now shows promise in treating the disease earlier.

Given before surgery, it can shrink - and even eradicate - the tumour.

This cuts the need for an extensive operation, which can often lead to the entire breast being removed.

In the UK alone, this would mean that thousands fewer mastectomies would be needed.

"This is very welcome news for patients with a particularly aggressive form of breast cancer, some of whom will no longer face the prospect of losing their breast," said Dr Andrew Wardley, of the Christie Hospital in Manchester.

Women with large tumours are given a cocktail of drugs before surgery, in the hope this will shrink the tumour and so reduce the chances of having to remove the entire breast.

Adding Herceptin into the mix makes this shrinking much more likely, according to research carried out in Italy.

Doctors from the Istituto Nazionale Tumori in Milan tracked the health of 228 women with large tumours.

Half took the drugs usually given to shrink tumours, while half were also given Herceptin.

After a year, examinations showed that the tumours had been eradicated in 43 per cent of the women being treated with Herceptin, compared with 23 per cent in the other group, the American Society of Clinical Oncology's annual conference heard yesterday.

British experts say the finding could have important implications for the treatment of women with HER2-positive cancer, the form of the disease vulnerable to Herceptin.

HER2-positive grows and spreads rapidly and is found in a quarter of the 44,000 British women diagnosed with breast cancer each year.

Cited by specialists as the biggest development in breast cancer treatment for quarter of a century, Herceptin kick starts the immune system into killing cancerous cells.

Dr Wardley, a consultant medical oncologist, added: "Early treatment with chemotherapy and Herceptin has the ability to shrink big cancers and reduce the need for mastectomies.

"Also, getting in treatment earlier to eradicate cancer that might potentially spread around the body might have important implications in long-term survival."

Professor Alex Markham, senior medical adviser at Cancer Research UK, described the results as exciting.

Herceptin's manufacturer, Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche, could be given permission for the drug to be used in this way relatively quickly.

However, it would not be made available on the NHS for this purpose unless the Government's drugs rationing body, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence decided it was cost-effective to do so.

• The Washington DC conference also heard that breast cancer drug Avastin could extend the life expectancy of kidney cancer patients.

Those with an advanced form of the disease lived twice as long without their disease progressing when the drug was combined with their normal treatments.