Breast cancer has been a killer syndrome in women when not taken action to treat it at the initial stages. The advanced stages were not curable and thus a female had to fight with this disorder alone until death takes place. Finally, the FDA has approved one of the drugs that have emerged into the medical world meant for treating the dreadful breast cancer. This drug extends the several months to the life of women showing positive cases of breast cancer. HER2 is a positive breast cancer in females who had been treated but still the spread of tumor has taken place.
The new invented drug namely, Kadcyla does not cure this cancer fully, but it can add up many months of life which is a great step towards progression of medicine invention. It is obvious that no one wants to die. If a woman knows that death is certain for her, then knowing that some months can be extended to her life will give her a great relief as no one wants to die too early. It is an outcome of combination of the older drug namely Herceptin, with a highly toxic DM1, a kind of chemotherapy. DMI along with Herceptin is very strong and deliver result similar to chemotherapy.
In whole Kadcyla is a drug meant to treat cancer and to shrink the tumor and slows the progression of the disease. This ultimately results in prolong survival rate that adds some months to the life cycle. This has also been clearly mentioned by the director of the FDA's office of oncology and hematology, named Dr. Richard Pazdur. The researchers report based in one of the trial that included 991 females with advanced cases of HER2 breast cancer revealed that amongst these females those who took Kadcyla was seen to live with an average of 5.8 months longer when compared to females who got more standard chemotherapy. This clearly specified that women on standard chemotherapy showed two years increment in the life length and those with Kadcyla showed 2 ½ years increment in life which is half years more than standard chemotherapy.
There have been only a few studies with metastatic breast cancer that showed an improvement in overall survival rate, and it is very tough to perform the study. This was also mentioned by Dr. Sunil Verma, in Toronto. The drug is being made by Genentech who has started giving importance the formulation based on ADC. This formula is made in a hope that it causes reduced side-effects compared to ordinary therapy, which is known to affront healthy tissues. Herceptin provides with synthetically made immune system protein, a monoclonal antibody namely, tratuzumab.
The company's chief medical officer, Dr. Hal Barron, said in one of the statements that they currently had more than 25 antibody-drug conjugates while also saying that this approach would help with the delivery of more medications in future to defeat other type of cancers too. However, Genetech says that the cost attached would be very high and that a 10 month course therapy would cost as of $ 94,000. Genentech also assured FDA that it would help patients pay for it. People with no health insurance and people with lifetime limit provided to them by their insurance companies, could possibly qualify to get Kadcyla with no charge.
Lower side effect doesn't mean that the drug has no side-effects, it can cause damage to heart, lungs, and liver. And thus, it is not recommended in case of pregnancy.
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