Researchers have reported promising results from a clinical trial studying the effectiveness of the cancer-killing drug trastuzumab rezetecan in treating advanced breast cancer patients.
The study, which involved 551 female patients across 73 hospitals in China, compared the outcomes of patients who received the drug intravenously every three weeks with those who received standard chemotherapy. The results showed that the drug significantly delayed cancer progression, with patients experiencing a median time without tumor growth of 16.4 months compared to 6.8 months for those who received chemotherapy.
The trial also found that patients who received trastuzumab rezetecan were 73% less likely to have their cancer worsen or die during the study than those who received chemotherapy. Tumors shrank in 75.5% of patients who received the drug, compared with 41.2% of those who received chemotherapy.
The researchers concluded that trastuzumab rezetecan provided a "significant progression-free survival benefit over physician’s choice of chemotherapy in patients with ERBB2-low advanced breast cancer." The results were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Breast surgical oncologist Loren Rourke, who was not involved in the study, described the findings as "incredibly encouraging" and noted that the treatment showed benefits across different types of breast cancer. However, Rourke also emphasized the importance of considering the potential side effects of the drug, which included anemia and other blood-related problems that occurred in more than 84% of patients who received the new drug.
NTC Report coverage is based on reporting from the original publisher.
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