The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 275 No 7379 p716
10 December 2005

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Breast cancer treatment beneficial in 40 per cent of patients with advanced disease

An oral once-daily first-line treatment for advanced breast cancer provides a clinical benefit in 40 per cent of patients, data presented at the recent European Cancer Conference (ECCO) in Paris suggest.

Interim results of a phase II trial of lapatinib (Tykerb; GlaxoSmithKline) as first-line therapy in 40 patients with advanced or metastatic breast cancer (with ErbB2 overexpression) showed that 33 per cent of patients had tumour reductions and 40 per cent experienced clinical benefit (defined as tumour reduction or stable disease for at least 24 weeks).

Preliminary analyses have also shown beneficial effects when lapatinib is used in the treatment of brain metastases and renal cancer, GSK says.

Lapatinib is a dual-kinase inhibitor being developed to treat a variety of tumours. It inhibits the kinase components of the ErbB1 and ErbB2 receptors, which are associated with cancer-cell proliferation and tumour growth.