According to a study, thousands of women living in the UK suffering from an aggressive form of breast cancer could be improved by a newly discovered treatment. The study, conducted by the Cancer Research Institute, found that medication commonly used to help other breast cancers that have spread to another part of the body could potentially be used to help about a fifth of women who have triple negative breast cancer. Every year in Britain, about 55,000 people are diagnosed with breast cancer, with about one in five of these being triple negative. This type of breast cancer, usually more severe, is more likely to occur in younger women and black women. Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer in the UK and every year the disease takes around 11,500 women's lives.
The discovery by researchers that the drug palbociclib could be used even more widely than previously thought could "provide a much-needed targeted treatment" for those at higher risk of spreading their cancer more rapidly, becoming incurable and sometimes unresponsive to traditional chemotherapy. Breast Cancer Now, a leading charity that sponsored the research, Dr. Simon Vincent, said: "It is extremely exciting that this study has uncovered a new potential use of palbociclib as a targeted treatment for some women with triple negative breast cancer."