Three-drug combination moves forward for advanced breast cancer 11
Image: Breast cancer cells. Credit: Ewa Krawczyk
A combination of three drugs is safe and shows signs of effectiveness in treating some patients with previously treated advanced breast cancer, a clinical trial shows.
The ‘triplet therapy’ combines the hormone therapy fulvestrant with two targeted drugs, called palbociclib and taselisib, that block cells from multiplying and dividing.
A total of 78 patients with breast or other cancers were enrolled in the trial, and were given either the triplet therapy or a ‘doublet’ therapy of the targeted drugs without fulvestrant.
The triplet therapy showed particular promise in the 25 patients with advanced and previously treated oestrogen receptor positive, HER-2 negative breast cancer with mutations in the