Finnish new treatment reduces breast cancer deaths by one third

HELSINKI, Jan. 28 -- Finnish cancer researchers have had an important breakthrough in the treatment of breast cancer, according to Finnish media reports on Thursday.

The new treatment developed in Finland reduces the renewal risk of aggressive breast cancer and the consequent deaths by as much as a third.

In the treatment the Finnish researchers targeted a protein called HER2. HER2 is a growth factor protein, which transmits growth signals to breast cancer cells. The protein is the cause of the so-called HER-positive breast cancer. This cancer type is often difficult and aggressive and it has a strong tendency to send metastases to other parts of the body. About 15 percent of all the breast cancer patients suffer from this aggressive type.

If the renewal risk of the cancer is significant, cytostatic treatment is commenced after the operation. This lowers the risk of renewal of the cancer by 40 percent among patients under the age of 50. The risk of dying of the illness is cut down by 30 percent. For the HER-positive breast cancer patients, the Finnish researchers also gave trastuzumab in connection with their cytostatic treatment. Trastuzumab blocks the effects of the growth factor protein HER2 by binding to it.

Previously similar treatments have been experimented with elsewhere in regimens that have lasted for a year and a half. What is distinctive to the Finnish regimen is its shortness. The treatment only lasts for nine weeks.

"The new treatment form, trastuzumab, is one of the greatest advances in the past 15-20 years in the field of breast cancer research," said Petri Bono, chief physician at the Department of Medical Oncology, Helsinki University Hospital.

The Finnish study's results were astoundingly good. Five years after contracting the illness, 92.5 percent of the patients were still alive without the re-emergence of the cancer. The risks of renewal of the cancer or deaths caused by it were reduced by a third.

Encouraged by the results, a large-scale international follow- up research program has been launched.

Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer among women. Around 1.3 million women around the globe contract the illness each year. Around 4,100 Finnish women will contract breast cancer each year.