Health: New Experimental Breast Cancer Treatment For Aggressive Disease
By Stephanie Stahl
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Some exciting, new research is underway here in Philadelphia to treat an aggressive form of breast cancer. 3 On Your Side Health Reporter Stephanie Stahl has more on the new study.
Inflammatory breast cancer strikes quickly and often younger women. It can be deadly because treatments haven't been very effective. That could be changing.
Kathleen Madden is hoping a Philadelphia experiment can save her life. The 48-year-old has inflammatory breast cancer.
"It's not like any other cancer. It is aggressive and resistant. And I am stage four, incurable. The only thing I can do is prolong my life," said Kathleen. Nothing else worked, not chemotherapy, surgery or radiation. So Kathleen, the mother of two teenagers who lives in Boston, is back in her hometown hoping to test a new combination therapy that's being tested at Jefferson's Sydney Kimmel Cancer Center.
"I thinks it's very exciting," said Dr. Massimo Cristofanilli, Director of the Jefferson Breast Care Center. He says current treatments for advanced inflammatory breast cancer, marked by swollen, red skin, are limited. He's experimenting with the drug Romidepsin, that's used to treat lymphoma, in combination with a traditional chemotherapy.
"What it does is blocks the cells proliferation," said Dr. Cristofanilli.
Preliminary results show the drug combination appears to break up clumps of cancer cells.
"And it also seems to be making the tumor less aggressive over time," said Liz Santarsiero, an oncological nurse at Jefferson. She says the preliminary results have been encouraging.
"I think that's one of the reasons why people are coming in from all over the country," said Liz.
For Kathleen, she's just looking for at least a little extra time.
"You can hope that that would lead to a significant increase in my life, and maybe they would come up with a cure. I mean that would be my dream obviously," said Kathleen.
This is just the beginning, phase one of the trial. The researchers are still tweaking the dosage of the drugs.
Jefferson Study Information- http://blogs.jefferson.edu/atjeff/2014/07/03/novel-agent-set-unique-clinical-test-inflammatory-breast-cancer/
