A new use of the drug Herceptin appears to offer a much more powerful treatment advantage than expected for patients with HER-2-positive breast cancer, say researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. When combined with chemotherapy and used before surgery in early stage breast cancer the drug proved so beneficial - eliminating 42 percent more tumors than chemotherapy alone - that the clinical trial testing of this new treatment plan was halted early, the researchers report in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
