Other Article Summaries:
The first article was from the San Francisco Chronicle and is about the financial aspect of the drug. Herceptin is very costly and has made a very large profit. It also talks about a man named Roche Holding who is currently attempting to get a drug, similar to herceptin, approved by the FDA. Also, it talks about several statistics that involve the accuracy of the tests as well as the success of the actual drug. It also mentions the DM1 drug that was added to herceptin, even though it was proven to be toxic and not very successful when it was used as a drug for chemotherapy, several years ago.
The second article is very in depth and talks about both the positives and negatives of testing for the HER2 protein as well as the actual medication, Herceptin. Treatment with herceptin to tumors with high levels of HER2 seems to have promising results but some situations that occur during the clinical trials with advanced breast cancer patients lack some explanations. For example, they do not know why patients react better when the drug is given with chemotherapy. Also, they do not know why less than half of the cases responded to it on just the drug by alone. Test results are also varied. Someone who takes the test and gets a positive result may take it again and get a negative result. One type of testing called fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) analysis is usually more accurate. However, it is also more time consuming, expensive, and therefore is not as oftenly used. Some hospitals use only FISH testing. But normally, FISH is only used to clarify unclear test results. Dr. John Kennedy thinks that FISH testing should always be used since it is more accurate.
Article #1: Doherty, Dermot. "Roche to Seek Early Approval of Breast Cancer Drug (Update3)." San Francisco Chronicle. 15 Apr. 2010. Web. Apr. 2010.
Article #2: "HER2 Testing and Its Role in Breast Cancer." Ethiopian News and Opinion Journal. 16 Apr. 2010. Web. Apr. 2010.
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