GlaxoSmithKline's new breast cancer pill Tykerb might help prevent the growth of tumours in some people with a hard-to-treat form of the disease, US researchers reported on Sunday.
The addition of Tykerb to standard chemotherapy treatment failed to help most breast cancer patients, the researchers told a meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
However, it did increase survival in those patients who were HER2-positive, a type of breast cancer that spreads more quickly and accounts for a quarter of cases, they said. Dr Angela Di Leo of Sandro Pitigliani Medical Oncology Unit in Prato, Italy, and colleagues examined data from a Phase III trial of 580 breast cancer patients whose cancer had spread and were either negative or untested for HER2.
Tykerb, known generically as lapatinib, given along with standard chemotherapy, did not work for most patients. But an analysis of 91 patients who were later identified as HER2-positive and who had not been treated with cancer drug Herceptin showed the combination therapy halted tumour growth for three months.