Drug launched in May halts metastatic breast cancer, say researchers in Madrid

Until now, women with breast cancer with positive hormone receptors which had spread were given a hormonal treatment which would keep the disease controlled for an average of a year, after which

the tumour would become immune to it, normally with fatal results.

But 400 Spanish women with an HER-positive strain of breast cancer which had come back and spread have been taking Abemaciclib along with the standard hormonal treatment, via clinical trials, and are responding well, says the research team.

Sold under the brand name of Verzenios, the drug stops the cancer progressing for an average of 28.2 months, according to the Lilly Foundation who developed it with the help of the GEICAM Group of cancer researchers and Madrid's Gregorio Marañón hospital oncology department.

Head of the latter, Dr Miguel Martín Jiménez – said by Nabil Daoud of the pharmaceutical company involved to be one of the top experts in their research area - has reported an excellent response rate.

Work has been ongoing on creating a drug to 'turn metastatic breast cancer into a chronic condition', rather than a death sentence, since 2002, the Lilly Foundation says.

Verzenios is 'very well tolerated' with 'very few side effects' and 'controls the disease in a way never seen before', Dr Martín Jiménez reveals.

He says it supposes a 'before and after' in stage VI breast cancer and provides an 'injection of optimism' for patients.

Dr Eva Ciruelos of the medical oncology service at Madrid's 12 de Octubre University Hospital and deputy chairwoman of the SOLTI breast cancer research group says around 30,000 women are diagnosed in Spain every year with breast cancer, but only 8% of women diagnosed for the first time will go on to develop a metastasis, meaning 'the situation is not very frequent'.

Of these 8% of 30,000, seven in 10 will be found to be affected with the subtype known as 'Luminal', with positive hormone receptors.

Dr Ciruelos says the next step is to see whether Abemaciclib offers any benefits to early-stage breast cancer, to make the drug more specific to individual patients, subtypes and stages of the disease, identify different aspects of it, and searching for different tumour markers to work out what to do when treatment fails.

Ongoing research into the drug may, the team says, lead to its being a permanent, lifelong treatment for metastatic breast cancer, so as to provide more than 28.2 months of life and quality of life before the disease starts to progress again.

The Lilly Foundation wants to see if it can be adapted for use in other types of tumour, and even whether it could somehow 'penetrate into the brain'.

Abemaciclib in pill format has been available on prescription since the beginning of May and is said to be 'very comfortable' to take with few, if any, adverse effects.