Breast Cancer Cure Discovered: Drug Kills Cancer Cells In 11 Days Without Chemotherapy

Treatment for one of the most prevalent cancers in the world, breast cancer, is finally on its way as researchers discovered a drug that kills the disease in a matter of days. If this drug can pass through several restrictions, breast cancer as a fatal disease may possibly be a thing of the past.

IFLScience reports that a group of researchers from the United Kingdom discovered the efficacy of Herceptin, also known as trastuzumab and Lapatinib. When combined, these two potent drugs are effective in busting the disease in as little as 11 days without employing chemotherapy.

Professor Nigel Bundred and his team revealed the findings during the European Breast Cancer Conference in Amsterdam. Based on the research, the two potent drugs can kill several breast cancer types.

The team conducted the study among HER2 positive breast cancer patients. HER2 (human epidermal growth factor receptor 2) is a protein responsible for the progression of cancer cells in the body as it helps these cells to grow and divide.

Out of 257 women, half were given with Herceptin and Lapatinib while the other half were administered as a control group. Eleven percent of the breast cancer patients who take the drug were found out with no traces of cancer cells and 17 percent of them were witnessed to have shrunken tumors. Meanwhile, the control group had 0 percent of patients who does not have cancer cells and only 3 percent were found out to have shrunken tumors.

Another good news about this possible breast cancer cure is that unlike other drugs, it does not induce side effects like vomiting, fatigue, hair loss as it does not take its toll on a human body. However, the down side is that Herceptin is only licensed to be used alongside chemotherapy as of now.

According to Breast Cancer Organization, 1 in 8 women in the United States will develop an invasive type of breast cancer in her lifetime. Breast cancer remains to be the top case of cancer among women in the nation. While the cases of breast cancer have declined over the years, it still takes copious amounts of lives, with over 40,000 women expected to die in 2016.