7 Healthcast: Breast cancer drug

About 25 percent of women diagnosed with breast cancer have a more aggressive type of cancer called HER-2 breast cancer.

"We knew that these tumors were more aggressive, but we didn't necessarily have a treatment that was targeted toward them to make their prognosis better," Dr. Beverly Moy, of Massachusetts General Hospital, said.

And now the drug Herceptin has federal approval to help prevent the aggressive breast cancer from coming back after the tumor has been removed.

"What we've found is that Herceptin is extremely effective with patients with this type of breast cancer," Dr. Moy said.

The findings come from two clinical trials of nearly 4,000 women. Half of the women received only chemotherapy, while the other half took Herceptin in addition to chemotherapy.

"The women who received Herceptin at three years, 87 percent remained free of disease verses women who didn't get the Herceptin, only 75 percent of women remained free of disease," Dr. Moy said.

Herceptin was originally used only in patients with advanced breast cancer.

"Breast cancer that had spread outside of the breast and the underarm lymph nodes," Dr. Moy said.

But now Herceptin is bringing hope to women who are in the early stages of breast cancer.

"We have a really effective drug that really reduces their risk of reoccurrence by half," Dr. Moy said.

Something she says makes the future of breast cancer survival a little brighter.

"If these survival numbers hold up and if these reoccurrence rates hold up the hope is that this will translate into big improvement for these women with early stage breast cancer," Dr. Moy said.

But patients should know heart failure is one possible side effect of Herceptin, so it is not recommended for women with heart problems or a weak heart.

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