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(U-WIRE) LEXINGTON, Ky. -- The Food and Drug Administration recently approved a new use for the breast cancer drug Herceptin, thanks in part to the work of a University Kentucky researcher.
Dr. Edward Romond, a cancer specialist and researcher at UK's Markey Cancer Center, was the lead investigator on a project that researched and analyzed two clinical trials of early-stage breast cancer patients who received Herceptin in addition to chemotherapy.
Herceptin is a monoclonal antibody that attaches to and prevents actions of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER-2), a protein that occurs in 25 percent of breast cancer patients, Romond said. HER-2 makes cells grow more aggressively and spread faster.
Herceptin had previously been used in combination with chemotherapy to treat women who had more advanced stages of HER-2-positive breast cancer, and in those instances, it caused the cancer to shrink, Romond said.
"The next obvious question was, what happens if we give it to women who have just been diagnosed?" Romond said.
Romond said he was asked to chair a study through the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project to examine that question. The Breast and Bowel Project includes 165 major institutions that focus on breast and colon cancer, he said.
"(The project's) focus is on keeping cancer from spreading," Romond said.
During the study, a couple thousand women were given "the best chemotherapy," and, in addition, half of those women received Herceptin, Romond said. That half of the women took Herceptin for a year, he said.
Romond said that during the Breast and Bowel Project's study, he heard of another study being conducted by Dr. Edith Perez of the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla.
"The studies were so similar that we were able to combine the results," Romond said.
The results of both studies found that the recurrence of breast cancer in patients who had received Herceptin was "half of what it was without the antibody," Romond said.
The results of the study were some of the most important in many years, said Dr. Kevin McDonagh, who is the chief of the division of hematology, oncology, and blood and marrow transplantation in the Department of Internal Medicine in the UK College of Medicine, the deputy director of the Markey Cancer Center, and the Markey foundation chair in oncology research.
"It's very hard to overestimate the significance of this study," McDonagh said. "It's one of the most (valuable) clinical studies in the last two decades. It really validates the use of a new class or generation of cancer drug targeted therapy.'
Most cancer treatments work in a "non-specific fashion," but new developments are paving the way for specifically targeted drugs, McDonagh said.
"Herceptin is one of the first (drugs) developed and implemented in this way," McDonagh said.
McDonagh said that Romond's involvement in the study "reflects extraordinarily well on this institution at UK."
He also said that Romond is finally getting the national attention he deserves.
"(Romond) hasn't been well known," McDonagh said. "He's finally receiving the national recognition that is appropriate for all his good work. It's a validation of his career."
Romond received other validation of his work when he was awarded the 2006 Celebration of Life Award by the Lexington affiliate of the Susan G. Komen Foundation in September.
Nancy Officer, the executive director for the Komen Foundation affiliate in Lexington, Ky., said each year the foundation gives out an award at its Pink Tie Gala to honor a cancer survivor or someone who has made a great contribution to fighting breast cancer.
"Everyone in the community agreed that he had done such great work for the women in this area and the nation," Officer said. "We were so thrilled that (Romond) was our winner of this award."
Romond, a graduate of UK's College of Medicine, has now been employed at UK for more than 20 years, but he before he became a doctor he served his community in another way -- as a high school math teacher in Boston.
Romond said his wife was earning her master's degree in nursing and he was meeting a lot of doctors through her. She then encouraged him to apply to medical school, and he ended up studying at UK.
"I loved teaching, but I was getting tired of geometry," Romond said. "So I wanted to do something different."
(C) 2006 Kentucky Kernel via U-WIRE
