Herceptin -"Simply Stunning"

Prix Gallien, gold medal (right)

Two stories, both from The Times, firstly:

Study results of more than 8,000 women worldwide who took the breast-cancer drug Herceptin (trastuzumab) are "simply stunning" and suggest the treatment is a potential cure for the disease, according to an editorial published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Treatment must change today so that all patients who would benefit from the drug can receive it, according to the editorial written by Gabriel Hortobagyi, director of the Breast Cancer Research Program at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center of the University of Texas.

"This observation suggests a dramatic and perhaps permanent perturbation of the natural history of the disease, maybe even a cure," Dr. Hortobagyi wrote. "Longer follow-up will determine whether this interpretation is correct."

Dr. Hortobagyi also wrote that the study results "are not evolutionary but revolutionary."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1834220,00.html

Now the second story:

A breast cancer sufferer is spending more than £25,000 to be treated with Herceptin by a private clinic in India.

Linda Vijeh, 50, of Ilminster, Somerset, UK is selling her £125,000 house to pay for the drug. She is believed to be the first British patient to travel abroad for Herceptin.

Speaking from India yesterday, she said: “Herceptin is only licensed in the UK for use where cancer has spread to other parts of the body. Well it’s a bit bloody late then.

“It takes some leap of faith to fly to a Third World country to be treated by a doctor you’ve never met in a hospital you’ve never heard of. That is how desperate I was.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1833793,00.html

Now, look at the cartoon below again! It's harder to laugh, isn't it?

Update 24/10/05

Insider spotted this comment on Healthy Skepticisms' website from Barbara Brenner of Breast Cancer Action. It relates to Dr. Hortobagyi and his past record:

"Additionally, readers should know that Dr. Hortobagyi, who wrote the New England Journal of Medicine editorial encouraging widespread use of Herceptin for early stage breast cancer, is the same person who, in the early 1980s promoted high-dose chemotherapy for breast cancer before all the data were in.

Treatment changed nearly overnight, but by the time meaningful data were available, many women had suffered, many lives had been lost and we learned that the treatment didn’t work for breast cancer. In 1999, Dr. Hortobagyi recanted to the New York Times, saying about the treatment, “We deceived ourselves and we deceived our patients... We oversold it.” ".