Local doctors make breakthrough in breast cancer treatment

A chemotherapy program developed by local medical experts has improved the five-year disease-free survival rate of patients with one challenging form of breast cancer.

This is the first research breakthrough of its kind led by Chinese doctors, said experts from the Shanghai Cancer Center on Monday.

Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer among women. Among all types of breast cancer, the so called "triple-negative" variety is the toughest to treat, as it does not express genes for estrogen receptors, progesterone receptors or HER2. With no targeted therapy, chemotherapy is the only treatment option.

About 15 to 20 percent of breast cancer patients have triple-negative breast cancer, which is also the most fatal type.

“For most early-stage breast cancers, five-year disease-free survival is nearly 90 percent. The rate drops to about 80 percent for patients with triple-negative breast cancer under the standard treatment,” said Dr Shao Zhimin, director of the hospital’s department of breast cancer surgery.

Shao’s team started researching triple-negative breast cancer 10 years ago to improve survival rates and realize better treatment effects.

Doctors teamed up with nine hospitals across China to carry out a multi-center study involving 647 patients with triple-negative breast cancer since 2011.

Patients were divided into two groups, one receiving standard chemotherapy and the other receiving the new plan developed by Shao’s team using paclitaxel and carboplatin.

Their five-year study found that patients who received the new plan had a disease-free survival rate of 86.5 percent, compared with 80.3 percent in the standard plan.

The findings were published by the journal JAMA Oncology.