March 19, 2007: New IBC drug approved

Just as a note on the rapid progress of cancer research, a new drug called Tykerb (lapatinib) has been approved for women with “a rare, agressive form of breast cancer”.  Pretty much whenever you see that, you can assume they’re talking about IBC. 

The cool thing about Tykerb is that it’s having great success for women whose HER+ tumors have stopped responding to Herceptin, the fake-out hormone that Stacey is taking right now.  This is not to say that Stacey will need to move on to Tykerb, but it’s pretty cool to know that medical research is keeping up the pace.   (I’m trying to remember which protocol Stacey was using that was only approved a month before she was diagnosed… Stacey? Buelher?)

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