SYDNEY, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- Australian researchers have made a breakthrough in improving the cure rate for the most common form of breast cancer.
An international clinical trial led by Melbourne's Peter MacCallum Cancer Center (Peter Mac) has shown that adding the immunotherapy drug nivolumab to the chemotherapy that breast cancer patients receive before surgery can dramatically improve outcomes, according to the latest news release on Peter Mac website.
The trial involved 510 people with the ER+/HER2- subtype of breast cancer, which accounts for about 70 percent of all cases globally, who received chemotherapy to shrink their tumor before it was surgically removed.
Researchers assessed how adding an infusion of nivolumab, or a placebo, during the pre-surgery phase affected their response to treatment.
They found that 25 percent of trial participants treated with nivolumab achieved a pathologic complete response (pCR), which means there was no sign of cancer after surgery, compared to 14 percent in the placebo group.
"These patients are considered to be likely cured because their tumor was removed and samples of breast and lymph node tissue collected at the same time also show no detectable cancer cells," Sherene Loi, a medical oncologist from Peter Mac and leader of the trial, said. ■
