Sheba participating in groundbreaking breast cancer study

Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer is taking part in two studies in international breast cancer research programs that herald a breakthrough in treatment for women already in the fatal stages of breast cancer.

The studies focus on treatment administered to women whose cancer has spread from the breast to vital body organs. At this stage the disease is almost incurable and the traditional treatment - hormonal and biological - is intended to suppress the development of the cancerous metastases to reduce the pain.

One of these studies combines hormonal and biological treatment, which stops the disease for twice as long as the hormonal treatment alone (4.8 months compared to 2.4).

"This means that the condition of the women who received the combined treatment did not worsen but compared to the control group improved or stabilized for almost five months," said Dr. Bella Kaufman, head of Sheba's Oncology Division's breast cancer unit. Kaufman presented the first of the two studies on Tuesday in a conference in Istanbul, attended by 4,000 oncologists to mark Cancer Awareness Month.

Kaufman took part in the research, which spanned 22 countries in Europe, the United States, Australia and Asia, on a control group of 208 patients, 12 of them in Sheba. The study examined the effectiveness of suppressing fatal cancer in its metastasis stage by combining hormonal (arimidex) and biological (Herceptin) treatments. The research was conducted on women whose cancerous tumors were sensitive to HER-2 protein and to the hormones estrogen and progesterone.

"The research is groundbreaking because so far women have been treated on two separate tracks. Women whose cancerous tumors had receptors sensitive to HER-2 were treated with Herceptin combined with chemotherapy," Kaufman said.

The receptor is a protein enabling the cell to be affected by various drugs. For example, women with numerous HER-2 receptors, which encourage the growth of cancerous cells, can be effectively treated with Herceptin.

In the study, a control group of 104 patients received only hormonal treatment while an experiment group of 104 patients received a combined hormone and Herceptin treatment.

In addition to blocking the disease for a longer period of time, the combined treatment was three times more effective - 20.3 percent compared to 6.8 percent. It led to the disappearance or the reduction of the cancerous metastases in about 20 percent of the women who received it, compared to some 7 percent in the control group that had been given only hormonal treatment.

The study also found that the combined treatment increased by 53 percent the number of women whose cancer had stabilized or stopped developing for more than six months.

The next stage in the research will be tracing the biological signs that indicate in advance which patients would respond most effectively to the combined treatment, Kaufman said.