Combo Drug Boosts Survival in Some Women With Early Breast Cancer [Video]

Key Takeaways

An immunotherapy/chemotherapy combo drug can keep early-stage breast cancer patients cancer-free for yearsAbout 97% of patients remained cancer-free five years after treatment with KadcylaThey also had better quality of life than those with chemo and immunotherapy applied separately

FRIDAY, June 28, 20204 (HealthDay news) — An immunotherapy/chemotherapy combo drug can help early-stage breast cancer patients remain cancer-free following treatment, a new trial shows.

The combo drug, Kadcyla, is already approved to treat patients with advanced HER2-positive breast cancer, researchers said.

The new results show that stage 1 breast cancer patients who received Kadcyla stayed free of invasive cancer five years after treatment.

“One year of [Kadcyla] after surgery for patients with a stage 1 HER2-positive cancer leads to outstanding long-term outcomes, making it a reasonable treatment approach for select patients,” said senior study author Dr. Sara Tolaney, chief of breast oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

HER2-positive breast cancers are fueled …