Targeted cancer therapies are treatments that target specific characteristics of cancer cells, such as a protein that allows the cancer cells to grow in a rapid or abnormal way. Targeted therapies are generally less likely than chemotherapy to harm normal, healthy cells. Some targeted therapies are antibodies that work like the antibodies made naturally by our immune systems. These types of targeted therapies are sometimes called immune targeted therapies.
There are currently 3 targeted therapies doctors use to treat breast cancer:
Herceptin
Herceptin (chemical name: trastuzumab) can be an effective treatment both before and after surgery for people with HER2-positive breast cancer. It has also been shown to reduce the risk of breast cancer recurrence after initial surgery.
Cancer cells grow in an uncontrolled fashion. Herceptin works on the surface of the cancer cell by blocking the chemical signals that can stimulate this uncontrolled growth.
Genes are like instruction manuals that tell each cell of our body how to grow, what kind of cell to become, and how to behave. Genes do this by ordering the cell to make special proteins that cause a certain activity -- like cell growth, rest, or repair.
Some cancer cells have abnormalities in genes that tell the cell how much and how fast to grow. Sometimes the cancer cells have too many copies of these genes with abnormalities. When there are too many copies of these genes, doctors refer to it as "overexpression." With some forms of gene overexpression, cancer cells will make too many of the proteins that control cell growth and division, causing the cancer to grow and spread.
Tykerb
Tykerb (chemical name: lapatinib) has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to be given in combination with Xeloda (chemical name: capecitabine), a type of chemotherapy, to treat advanced, HER2-positive breast cancer that has stopped responding to anthracyclines, taxanes, and Herceptin.
Cancer cells grow in an uncontrolled fashion. Tykerb works inside the cancer cell by interfering with certain proteins, called kinases, that can stimulate this uncontrolled growth.
Genes are like instruction manuals that tell each cell in the body how to grow, what kind of cell become, and how to behave. They do this by ordering the cell to make special proteins that cause a certain activity -- like cell growth, rest, or repair.
Some cancer cells have abnormalities in genes that tell the cell how much and how fast to grow. Sometimes the cancer cells have too many copies of these genes with abnormalities. When there are too many copies of these genes, doctors refer to it as “overexpression.” With some forms of gene overexpression, cancer cells will make too many of the proteins that control cell growth and division, causing the cancer to grow and spread.
Avastin
Avastin (chemical name: bevacizumab) is a targeted therapy that was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in combination with Taxol (chemical name: paclitaxel) in February 2008 to treat people with metastatic HER2-negative breast cancer who haven't yet received chemotherapy for metastatic breast cancer.
Breast and other cancers need a good supply of blood to deliver the oxygen and nutrients that cancer cells need to grow, function, and multiply. To get that blood, cancer cells have ways of stimulating the growth of new blood vessels into the tumor. Avastin works by blocking this growth of new blood vessels, which starves the cancer of nutrients.
The growth of new blood vessels into a tumor is called angiogenesis (“angio” means blood vessel and “genesis” means beginning). Cancer cells can make a protein, called vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), to stimulate angiogenesis. Avastin blocks VEGF. By blocking VEGF, Avastin can interfere with the growth of new blood vessels into breast cancer tissue and starve the cancer. Doctors use the term anti-angiogenic to describe Avastin, because it works against the formation of blood vessels. Avastin can also change blood vessels already feeding the cancer in ways that make it harder for the cancer to survive and more vulnerable to chemotherapy. Avastin is an immune targeted therapy.
