"Triple therapy' hope for breast cancer sufferers

A NEW “triple therapy” could provide a lifeline for women with incurable breast cancer by helping them survive the disease for longer.

- Hanna Geissler

A major trial found the combination was more effective than the two-drug mix currently in use, and more than doubled the time before patients’ cancer worsened.

Women taking all three medications were 33% less likely to die during the three-year study period and more likely to see their tumours shrink significantly. The triple therapy also delayed the need for chemotherapy by almost two years.

One of the drugs, inavolisib, blocks the activity of a protein called  PIK3CA and destroys mutated versions of it. Inavolisib was used with palbociclib, which blocks another abnormal protein,  and hormone therapy drug fulvestrant.