New Study for Chemo Treatments

and unfortunately, it sounds to me like horrible news for many women..

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19048185/

Treating many to help few
The UCLA research questions that treatment.

Slamon played a key role in the discovery and development of the hugely successful breast cancer drug Herceptin. Herceptin, which changed the way the disease is treated, specifically targets a gene called Her-2 that is overexpressed in 20 percent to 25 percent of breast cancers (a gene is overexpressed when its effect becomes excessive in the body). Herceptin's success proved that breast cancer is not one disease, but many, with each benefiting from a tailored treatment.

In this latest study, Slamon looked at a more recently discovered gene called Topoll-2, which is sometimes, but not always, overexpressed along with Her-2. Anthracyclines stop breast cancer because they target Topoll-2.

Slamon examined tissue samples from more than 2,000 women who took part in seven clinical trials.

His analysis showed that anthracyclines work only in women who overexpress the Topoll-2 gene. Such women account for 8 percent of breast cancer cases.

The anthracyclines - with all their side effects - have almost no effect in 92 percent of breast cancer cases. 

"It seems apparent that we are treating patients who don't need the drug to get at that group who have a huge benefit," Slamon told me. "And now we need to direct our therapy and target it more specifically."