PLANTATION, Fla. – The Food and Drug Administration has given approval to a new treatment for a newly defined form of genetic breast cancer.
Dr. Alejandra Perez with Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center said along with HER-2 and HER-2 negative breast cancers, there’s also HER-2 low.
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HER-2 is a protein that is expressed by the cancer cells.
Perez was a principal investigator into the newly approved drug Enhertu to treat this form of breast cancer.
Patients with metastatic disease were randomized into two groups: those who got the new drug, and those who got various types of traditional chemotherapy.
“So we looked at the two groups and what we found was the patients who had the new drug, Enhertu, the commercial name, they did much better. They did much better in terms of disease-free survival and overall survival what that means is we had a disease-free progression of 50 percent and a decreased risk of death by 36 percent,” she said.
Perez said the approval is a major leap forward in the treatment of breast cancer because 60 percent of patients who were previously classified as HER-2 negative, the most commonly diagnosed form of breast cancer, can now be considered HER-2 low.
Hearing loss awareness
A recent survey by the Cleveland Clinic is highlighting a lack of awareness when it comes to hearing loss.
It found that people are not getting routine hearing screenings
Fifty-nine percent said they would take their pet to the vet but only 27 percent said they were likely to get their own hearing checked.
Left untreated, hearing loss can lead to depression, social isolation, and poor quality of life.
Hearing loss ranks among the most prevalent and untreated disabilities in the world and is the third most chronic health condition in older adults.
One-in-eight adults in the U.S. and more than two-thirds of people over the age of 80 suffer from hearing loss.