Australian breakthrough offers new hope for breast cancer patients

Australian researchers have found a new treatment that can dramatically improve survival rates for a common form of breast cancer.

Researchers at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne have found the treatment can reduce the chances of it returning. 

More than 500 newly-diagnosed women with hormone receptor positive breast cancer (ER+/HER2) took part in the global trial, which tested whether adding an immunotherapy drug to chemotherapy helped kill cancer cells before a patient’s surgery.

The findings show cure rates among patients were dramatically improved.

Dr Sherene Loi said the breakthrough was an exciting step.

“It trains our own body and our own immune system to guard against recurrence of breast cancer,” Loi said.

“In the patients who just got chemotherapy, 15 per cent cleared their cancer at surgery but adding on the immunotherapy increased that to over 20 per cent.”

Cancer Council Victoria’s head of strategy and support, Danielle Spence, said researchers will need to monitor participants over the next few years to see if they remain breast cancer-free.

“We obviously need to follow that data for longer to make sure it is a trend that continues,” Spence said.