New Study for Triple Negatives!!!!!!

kyroheal

"Harvard scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have identified an overactive network of growth-spurring genes that drive stem-like breast cancer cells enriched in triple-negative breast tumors..."

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/06/whats-behind-aggressive-breast-cancer/

Any tartgeted therapy would be great!!! And it's already on the market so maybe not so long to become part of actual standard therapy...

Titan

Wow!  Let's hope this is something to hang on too!

brca1babe

this part of the article I did not like: 

"a typically aggressive cancer that is highly resistant to current therapies"

highly resistant?  yikes.

the study will likely be for stage IV pts first even though the drug exists.

Lynn18

babe:  Yikes, indeed.  That does sounds scary.  

kyro:  Thanks for posting this.  We really, really need something similar to Herceptin for us with TN. I hope this is it. 

Meggy

Hopefully by "highly resistant" they just meant that Tomaxifin and Herceptin, etc. don't work for us. 

It said that the cells they are targeting are likely present in 50-60% of us....I wish that part was higher.

This article brought tears to my eyes...I think because I got some gut feeling that this thing is really going to work.  

Luah

Yup, that's the best sounding advance in TN I've heard in a long time. Thanks for posting.  

kyroheal

I agree! I hate hearing that but after a couple of years doing research myself, researchers always want to show a need for the work that they are doing and that it is worthwhile (it's how they get funding, etc) so words like highly resistant make it more appealing. I truly believe it is aggressive due to lack of targeted therapy. Either way there is something about this article that makes me happy. And I love that the drug exists.

Lynn18

Yes, the drug exists and the article suggests that it is relatively nontoxic.  Is there any way to follow up on this to see if it ends up truly being a beneficial treatment?

kyroheal

I contacted the principal investigaor for the study, this is what she worte:

Dear Sandy
Thanks for writing.
The trial is not yet open, but hopefully we will have it open by December or so.
However, it will be limited for patients with stage 4 breast cancer.
If you have stage I, II, or III breast cancer, you could potentially talk to
your doctor about the MA.32 trial and ask if it is right for you. This is a
study being led by the NCIC with many sites open in Canada, looking at
metformin.
Sincerely,
Nancy Lin

Lynn18

kyroheal:  Wow, thanks for contacting the investigator.  December is not far off.

tibet

Hi sandy

Thanks. What is the MA 32 trial? Anyone knows about it?

kyroheal

Hey,

here is the link to the trial

http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01101438

They are looking to see if metformin reduces the risk of recurrence. I guess it will take a while to have any significant findings. Here is an explanation of what metformin has been shown to do.

http://jco.ascopubs.org/content/27/20/3271.full

I don't think any studies have subdivided to triple negatives which I think is really important. I see the insulin link, but maybe the insulin link is more important in estrogen positive. Who knows??? I don't

Sandy

Luah

I'm confused. I don't think metformin is the drug that's referred to in the OP link, is it? It's something else affecting the newly-identified pathway... a drug used in blood cancer (not diabetes). And I believe there are already several metformin trials underway. Sandy, did you mean to post this somewhere else, or am I misreading something?

AnnNYC

Luah, metformin is not the drug in the OP link, but Kyroheal/Sandy wrote to the principal investigator (Nancy Lin) mentioned in the OP link.  Dr. Lin says the trial of the new drug (Jak2/Stat3 inhibitor) will begin in December for Stage IV only.  It seems Dr. Lin didn't want to leave TNs who are Stage I, II and III "empty-handed" -- and therefore mentioned the possibility of metformin trials for earlier stages.

kyroheal

Sorry! I was responding to newalex about the trial for metformin not the initial one in the thread.

Luah

Okay, got it, thanks!