Carboplatin, yoga more effective in fighting breast cancer
Carboplatin is commonly available and inexpensive, which makes it promising cure for millions of families who can’t afford expensive treatment; Yoga improves survival rate significantly, find study by Tata Memorial, India
Tata Memorial provides new hope in fight against breast cancer for the poor
A study by the Tata Memorial Centre (TMC), an organisation that has been at the forefront in the fight against cancer in India for decades, has found that commonly available and inexpensive drug, carboplatin, increased the cure rate of women with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), a very aggressive type of breast cancer
Young women specifically seemed to benefit more, and cure rates increased significantly among women who were prescribed carboplatin apart from chemotherapy and surgery.
Dr. Sudeep Gupta, Professor of Medical Oncology at Tata Memorial Centre, presented the results of the “TMC Study – Platinum in TNBC” at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, which is the largest and most important breast cancer conference in the world. Dr. Rajendra A Badwe, Director TMC, is the Principal Investigator of this study, which was conducted by the Breast Cancer Working Group of Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai.
Prior to this study, there was no conclusive evidence that this drug could be used as part of the treatment of the disease.
“Carboplatin will now be routinely offered as part of pre-operative chemotherapy regimen to women with TNBC which is the most aggressive type of breast cancer. Given that TNBC constitutes about 30% of breast cancer in India and about 45% of breast cancer in women younger than 50 years, the implications of this result are very important,” said a TMC statement.
Meanwhile, a study by the Tata Memorial Hospital, suggests inclusion of Yoga in the treatment of breast cancer patients would benefit them significantly. Yoga helped in 15% relative improvement in disease free survival (DFS) and 14% in overall survival (OS), according to the study by Dr. Nita Nair who presented the findings at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), about 2.3 million women were diagnosed with breast cancer with 685,000 deaths globally in 2020. As of end-2020, there were 7.8 million women alive who were diagnosed with breast cancer in the past five years, making it the world’s most prevalent cancer.
To reduce the risk of breast cancer, WHO recommends: prolonged breastfeeding; regular physical activity; weight control; avoidance of harmful use of alcohol; avoidance of exposure to tobacco smoke; avoidance of prolonged use of hormones; and avoidance of excessive radiation exposure.
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