Drug combo better for common type of metastatic breast cancer

2 August 2012

Postmenopausal women with the most common type of metastatic breast cancer now have a new treatment option that lengthens their lives, according a study led by UC Irvine oncologist Rita Mehta and conducted by the Southwest Oncology Group. The findings appear in the August 2 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

A combination of the two anti-estrogen drugs, Arimidex ( anastrozole) and Faslodex (fulvestrant) – both developed and commercialized by Anglo-Swedish drug major AstraZeneca (LSE: AZN) but now off-patent - extended the median survival time of women with Stage 4 hormone receptor-positive metastatic breast cancer by more than six months compared to those who underwent standard treatment with anastrozole alone.

Dr Mehta said the results of the Phase III trial are particularly exciting because "these patients have not had a new treatment that gave them an overall survival benefit in more than a decade."

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