Cancer Commentary - Caring About Cancer

Pertuzumab: New Class of Targeted Cancer Drugs Showing Promise Against Recurrent Prostate Cancer

by Gloria Gamat on March 1st, 2007

A new class of targeted anti-cancer drugs – pertuzumab - has been found by a new Cedar-Sinai study to prolong the lives of patients with recurrent prostate cancer.

Pertuzumab works by blocking the human epidermal growth factor (HER) receptor family by binding to and inhibiting the function of HER2 receptors, thereby interrupting a key pathway leading to cancer growth.

According to David B. Agus, M.D., principal investigator of the study and research director of Cedars-Sinai’s Louis Warschaw Prostate Cancer Center at the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute:

“Advanced prostate cancer is difficult to treat — and the drug therapies currently available to these patients have not been very effective, especially in patients whose disease has progressed after chemotherapy treatment. Pertuzumab may offer a new treatment approach for these patients when it is evaluated as a tool to slow — not stop or shrink — tumor growth.”

The research hopes to be able to test pertuzumab on a larger, randomized scale.

The research study (supported by Genentech, Inc. and the National Cancer Institute Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) program) is published in the February 20 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Find more details from the full report.

[article abstract]

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POSTED IN: Prostate & testicular cancer, ~ Anti-cancer treatments ~