Cancer News, Treatment and Research

In a report that appears online in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, researchers have shown that a subset of breast cancer patients who have tumors overexpressing a protein called the human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER-2 positive) may benefit from a combination of targeted treatments that zero in on the breast cancer cells themselves. That could enable some women to avoid the “sledgehammer” of typical chemotherapy drugs that kill normal and tumor cells alike and avoid triggering resistance in tumor cells. Institutions taking part in the study were: the Baylor College of Medicine (home to the Dan L. Duncan Cancer Center), Vanderbilt University (home of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center), the University of Alabama Birmingham (home of the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center), the University of Chicago (home of the University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center), the Mayo Clinic, and the Methodist Hospital.