Expert Assessment Part 1: Article Summary

Cancer Fight: Unclear Tests for New Drug



Purpose:

- The purpose of this article is to show the many complications that can happen when testing for HER2 tumors. Also, it talks about the possibility of a drug, called herceptin, which could possibly cure tumors that have high levels of HER2. The drug, herceptin, is not positively promoted in this article.

Key Information:

- Some breast cancer tumors have extra copies of a protein known as HER2. The drug herceptin blocks this protein, which, in turn, hinders the growth of the tumor. However, the drug only works if the tumor does have extra copies of the HER2 protein. The test to see if there are extra copies is not very reliable.
- When herceptin is used with a tumor that does have high levels of HER2, it can cause flu-like symptoms and can rarely cause severe heart damage and/or death. If used on a tumor without high levels of HER2, herceptin can be very toxic.

- Testing for extra copies can vary greatly from lab to lab. Therefore, most of the statistics that involve false positives, etc., are not readily available. Some tumors have parts that do have high levels of HER2 and may also have parts that don’t, so sometimes a false positive may be correct.

Key Conclusion:

- Herceptin would be a much more promising cancer treatment, if the test to see if there were high levels of HER2 was more reliable. If, the tests for extra copies of HER2 are revised and have a higher rate of accuracy, I believe that Herceptin should be used as a treatment for HER2 positive tumors.

How this class helped me to better understand this article:
- I thought that this article related to what we discussed in class, because it talked about proteins, genetic testing, and cancer. We discussed proteins a lot and how too many or too few copies of a specific protein can be dangerous and can cause certain diseases to become better or worse. We also talked about genetic testing and how sometimes they are not very reliable.





LIST OF PEOPLE AND AGENCIES REFERENCED BY THE AUTHOR:

People:
- Dr. Linda Griffith: Patient

- Dr. Antonio Wolff: Breast Cancer Specialist at John Hopkins
- Krysta Pellegrino: FDA spokeswoman

- Dr. Jeffrey Bloss: Vice President of North America Medical Affairs at GlaxoSmithKline

- Dr. Edith Perez: Breast Cancer Specialist at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville FL

- Alberto Gutierrez: Overseer of Diagnostic Products at the FDA

- Dr. Eric Winer: Dr. Griffith’s doctor

- Dr. Elizabeth Hammond: Pathologist at Intermountain Healthcare in Utah

- Sheila Maloney: Breast Cancer Survivor


Agencies:

- Center for Gynepathology Research at MIT

- Genentech: Maker of the drug, Herceptin

- Food and Drug Administration

- College of American Pathology

- American Society of Clinical Oncology

- The College of American Pathologists


TYPE OF ARTICLE:

- Report on Potential New Cure or Innovation
-
-This article reports on the potential of the new drug Herceptin


-Report on New Research Development

 -This article talks about the most recent discoveries of the problems with the tests that detect extra copies of HER2 proteins in cancerous tumors

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Citation:
Kolata, Gina. "Cancer Fight: Unclear Tests for New Drug." New York Times. 19 Apr. 2010. Web. Apr. 2010. .