News About the Best Breast Cancer Breakthroughs of 2020
Celebrating the Best Breast Cancer Breakthroughs of 2020
Both in the United States and worldwide too, breast cancer is still one of the leading causes of disease and death in women. Breast cancer is the second most common type of cancer affecting American women, only behind skin cancer. Around 276,480 new cases of invasive breast cancer just in the US alone will be diagnosed in 2020. That doesn’t include as estimated 48,530 cases of breast cancer. More than 2 million cases of breast cancer are diagnosed each year worldwide. Plus, we should remember that breast cancer can also affect men. Approximately 2,260 men will be diagnosed with male breast cancer by the end of 2020.
With the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 has been an especially scary year for those affected by breast cancer. Thankfully, new discoveries are being made every single day. Newer treatments, and screening and prevention strategies have progressively improved the survival rates for patients with breast cancer. During 2020:
- The FDA approved several promising drugs.
- Other medications showed great potential in clinical trials.
- New therapeutic alternatives were successfully tested and could revolutionize the standard of care for breast cancer.
Below are listed five of the most exciting breast cancer breakthroughs of 2020.
1. TTC-352 Shows Promise for Metastatic Breast Cancer*
What is this breakthrough?
A new drug called TTC-352 has been developed by researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago. This drug shows promising antitumor activity in patients who have ER+ metastatic breast cancer which has previously stopped responding to at least two hormonal therapies.
The drug is a selective human estrogen receptor partial agonist, which impedes the effects of estrogen on ER+ breast cancer, "starving" the tumor so it stops growing.
The study on TTC-352 found that:
It was able to stabilize the disease and prevent progression in patients with metastatic breast cancer for several months.
No toxic side effects were recorded, even in patients who received high doses of the medication.
Who can be helped with this breakthrough?
Approximately 80 percent of all cases of breast cancer are ER+, meaning that they have specific receptors for estrogen. These tumors grow in the presence of estrogen, which is one of the main hormones that naturally occur in women’s bodies. Patients who have this type of cancer are usually placed on hormone therapy to keep the tumor from growing.
But nearly half of all women treated with hormone therapy will stop responding to the treatment at some point, since cancer can become resistant to these drugs. The new drug could become an alternative to tamoxifen, which is commonly used to treat breast cancer — but unlike tamoxifen, TTC-352 has been found to pose a lower risk of developing uterine cancer.
According to Debra Tonetti*, one of the authors of the study on TTC-352, while there are many treatments for breast cancer, about half of women with ER-positive cancers become resistant to hormone therapy, leaving them with few treatments other than chemotherapy, with its well-known toxic side effects.
The development and eventual approval of TTC-352 could provide patients and their medical team with a new weapon to combat advanced breast cancer and serve as an alternative to traditional chemotherapy in these cases.
2. Single Dose Radiotherapy During Surgery as Effective as Conventional Radiotherapy for Early Breast Cancer
What is this breakthrough?
A study was recently published in the BMJ, a weekly peer-reviewed medical journal, one of the world's oldest general medical journals. The study found evidence that a single dose of radiotherapy, administered during lumpectomy procedures can be just as effective as traditional whole-breast radiotherapy for patients with early-stage invasive ductal carcinoma.
The study followed more than 2,000 patients with early-stage breast cancer over the course of several years. Researchers found that:
Who can this breakthrough help?
This finding could be significantly beneficial for women with early-stage breast cancer, since they may not have to receive whole-breast radiotherapy after lumpectomy surgery. Whole-breast radiotherapy has been part of the traditional approach to treating early-stage breast cancer for many patients throughout the years.
This breakthrough could:
- Make treatment easier for patients after lumpectomy procedures, allowing them to have more time to recover from the procedure and requiring fewer trips to the hospital.
- It could also mean that patients will be exposed to lower amounts of radiation during their treatment.
3. FDA Approves Combo Injection for HER2-Positive Breast Cancer
What is this breakthrough?
A fixed-dose combination of Herceptin (trastuzumab), Perjeta (pertuzumab), and hyaluronidase-zzxf received FDA approval in June, 2020. This combination is meant to be used to treat HER2-positive breast cancer in combination with chemotherapy. Phesgo can be used for both early-stage and metastatic breast cancer.
Who can this breakthrough help?
Phesgo can provide a shorter, more comfortable route of administration for patients with HER2-positive breast cancer — who make up approximately one fifth of all breast cancer patients. It can reduce the administration time of these medications from 1-2.5 hours to a mere 5 minutes.
This combo injection can also reduce patients’ need to go to the hospital for their treatments, which can help keep breast cancer patients safe at home during the current pandemic.
4. FDA-Approved Tukysa Can Prevent Progression of Brain Metastases
What is this breakthrough?
Tukysa (tucatinib) was approved by the FDA in April, 2020, to be used in combination with Herceptin (trastuzumab) and Xeloda (capecitabine) to treat HER2-positive breast cancer. This drug regime can be used to treat metastatic breast cancer, or locally advanced cases of breast cancer that can’t be entirely removed through surgery, also known as unresectable. This trial showed that adding Tukysa to Herceptin and Xeloda reduced both the risk of tumor growth and breast cancer mortality by 46 percent, increasing overall survival rates.
For patients with brain metastases, the drug combination reduced the risk of death, and increased progression-free survival as the primary outcome. These results are very encouraging for patients with brain metastases, who often don’t have a lot of therapeutic options available.
Who can this breakthrough help?
Tukysa can help patients with metastatic breast cancer which has spread to their brains by helping slow down or stop the progression of these lesions. In time, Tukysa could become a new standard of care for patients with advanced HER2-positive breast cancer, with or without brain metastases.
5. Researchers Find A Way to “Switch Off” Gene that Causes Aggressive Breast Cancer
What is this breakthrough?
A team of researchers at Tulane University School identified the gene TRAF3IP2, which plays an important role in the development of triple negative breast cancer (TNBC). The study compared the results of suppressing TRAF3IP2 versus another gene called Rab27a.
They found that suppressing either gene in mice slowed tumor growth. However, suppressing Rab27a still allowed a small number of cancer cells to spread. But when TRAF3IP2 was suppressed, they found no evidence of any type of micrometastases for up to a year after treatment.
Other studies found that silencing this gene could also benefit patients with glioblastoma, a fast-growing and very aggressive type of brain cancer.
Who can this breakthrough help?
Although further research is still needed, this discovery is incredibly exciting for the scientific community, especially considering that TNBC can be a devastating diagnosis. Hopefully, future trials will be successful and patients with TNBC and other types of cancer will be able to benefit from this breakthrough quickly.
*Debra Tonetti is one of the authors of the study on TTC-352. Tonetti is also a professor at UCI and a member of the University of Illinois Cancer.