http://www.forbes.com/forbeslife/hea...out606622.html
Newer Breast Cancer Drugs Appear to Boost Life Spans for Advanced cancers
by an average of ~8 months
Newer Breast Cancer Drugs Appear to Boost Life Spans
07.23.07, 12:00 AM ET
MONDAY, July 23 (HealthDay News) -- A newer generation of breast cancer
medications added months to the lives of patients with the most advanced
form of the disease, according to the first study of its kind.
Still, the prognosis for the patients remains grim, with the exception of
those who have a particular type of cancer that responds well to a new
drug. And, one expert noted, the study did not include the newer cancer
drug
Herceptin, which has proven to prolong women's lives.
Even so, "this provides encouragement to patients with metastatic breast
cancer" who were the focus of the study, said lead author Dr. Stephen
Chia, a medical oncologist at the British Columbia Cancer Agency. "We can
tell them that we have more drugs available, and it appears they do allow
them to live longer."
Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed type of cancer, and only lung
cancer kills more women.
Researchers have had a difficult time figuring out whether newer drugs,
including the class called aromatase inhibitors, are effective for the
most serious forms of breast cancer. It's considered unethical to assign
one group of terminal cancer patients to a drug and give others a placebo
or simply keep them comfortable.
"We're making a leap of faith as to what we're doing, how we're spending
our resources, that we're actually allowing them to live longer," Chia
said.
The new study looked at patients in the Canadian province of British
Columbia between 1991 and 2001. All the 2,150 women had metastatic breast
cancer, meaning tumors had spread beyond the breast.
The researchers found that the average survival time in the 1991-1992 and
1994-1995 periods was fairly stable, at 438 and 450 days, respectively.
But when new drugs became available in the middle of the decade, survival
grew to 564 days (1997-1998) and 667 days (1999-2001).
The newer medications included chemotherapy drugs and drugs known as
aromatase inhibitors that tinker with estrogen levels. The study doesn't
prove conclusively that the drugs lead to higher life spans, but the
authors wrote that it seems likely.
An increase in life span of about eight months may not seem like much. But
Chia pointed out that it's an average, and some women live longer.
In addition, he said, the newer drugs appear to be easier on patients, so
they have better quality of life during their final days.
The results are in the Sept. 1 issue of the journal Cancer.
Dr. Eric Winer, director of the Breast Oncology Center at the Dana-Farber
Cancer Institute in Boston, said the newer drugs are, indeed, easier for
patients to tolerate.
"They're not only more effective, but they're kinder and gentler than they
used to be. On a daily basis, our waiting room is filled with women, many
of whom have advanced breast cancer but don't look different from those
with early stages of breast cancer," he said.
Newer Breast Cancer Drugs Appear to Boost Life Spans for Advancedcancers by an average of ~8 months 
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