An in-depth look into a revolutionary drug approved by the FDA for metastatic breast cancer

The incidence of breast cancer in India is on the rise in rural and urban areas. In the year 2018 alone, there were 1,62,468 newly registered cases of breast cancer in India. About 50% of the newly diagnosed cases are that of metastatic breast cancer and need advanced breast cancer treatment. That statistic is divided into 5-10% of people presenting with metastatic breast cancer at the beginning, and the breast cancer progressing to a metastatic stage in the rest.

Even if you consult the best breast cancer treatment doctor in Delhi NCR or anywhere in the world, he/she will tell you that metastatic breast cancer is a little trickier and can sometimes be treatable but not curable. Also, the mortality rate of metastatic breast cancer is a little higher than any other stage of breast cancer. No wonder cancer specialists and metastatic breast cancer patients always want to be in the know about advancements in metastatic breast cancer treatment.

There is great news for everybody looking for an improvement in breast cancer treatment.

A new exciting breast cancer treatment

There’s good news, and there’s GOOD news. The US Food & Drug Administration has approved Tukysa or tucatinib in combination with chemotherapy as a breast cancer treatment on April 17, 2020. It is approved for the treatment of adults with advanced forms of HER2-positive breast cancer that are either inoperable or has spread to other parts of the body, including the brain.

This treatment acts as an additional targeted breast cancer treatment for HER2-positive breast cancer. It is the first new drug approved under an international collaboration of FDA called Project Orbis. The collaboration makes way for concurrent reviews of experimental drugs in multiple countries. For example, Tukysa is also under consideration in Australia, Canada, Singapore, and Switzerland.

Talking about the trial

The case was called the HER2CLIMB trial, and the results were presented at the 2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium leading to the approval. According to top cancer specialists, the trial included about 600 people seeking breast cancer treatment for metastatic cancer. Half of the patients had brain metastases, and all of them had prior exposure to Herceptin, Perjeta & an antibody-drug conjugate, Kadcyla (trastuzumab emtansine).

To the delight of cancer doctors and people seeking breast cancer treatment for metastatic cancer, the study was successful. It revealed that those who added Tukysa to Herceptin and capecitabin had a reduced mortality rate when compared to the control group, i.e., those who took Herceptin plus capecitabine. The two-year survival rate of adding Tukysa to the mix was 45%, while the two-year survival rate without Tukysa was 27%. Not only that, but it was also noted that at the one year mark, 33.1% of those in the Tukysa group had no disease progression while only 12.3% of the other group could say the same.

Even patients with brain metastases at the baseline receiving this breast cancer treatment triplet experienced a reduced risk of disease progression.

But, is this drug concoction or Tukysa individually free of side effects? What do cancer specialists think? No. Although if you’re looking for advanced breast cancer treatment in Delhi NCR or anywhere in the world, new additions like Tukysa may serve you better than anything else. But how do you know? You can always consult a reputed practitioner like Dr. Manish Singhal, to get more information about the same.

Coming back to the point, since it is best to be informed about the positives and negatives about such great discoveries, let’s look at the side effects of Tukysa.

Side effects of Tukysa

Cancer specialists working on the study believe that while adding Tukysa to the concoction did not add much to the toxicity of breast cancer treatment, it surely isn’t free of side effects.

Some common side effects are:

• Diarrhoea
• Hand-foot syndrome
• Nausea
• Fatigue
• Vomiting

The most common severe side effects on the other hand are:

• Hand-foot syndrome
• Diarrhoea
• Elevated liver enzymes
• Fatigue

Before we say goodbye

According to researchers and the best cancer doctors in Delhi or worldwide like Dr. Manish Singhal, adding Tukysa to Herceptin and Xeloda, the “normal” breast cancer treatment for advanced forms of HER2-positive breast cancer that are either inoperable or has spread to other parts of the body might become the new standard of treatment. The truth is that the result of this analysis is exceptionally encouraging for patients diagnosed with metastatic HER2-positive disease that has spread to the brain.

Even so, any decision taken regarding a change of breast cancer treatment plan or choosing a treatment plan should be made only after consulting a cancer specialist who knows about all the current advancements and also takes your history into consideration. If you’re looking for a good consult, you can surely talk to Dr. Manish Singhal, the best oncologist in Delhi, for example.