The fight against breast cancer is nearing a possible breakthrough. Kisqali is a breast cancer drug that has been on the market for some time now. It has now been found to lower the reoccurrence rate of breast cancer. Novartis, the pharmaceutical company behind the drug released its latest findings Friday. Kisqali has already received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The drug was initially developed for people in advanced stages of breast cancer.
A Wider Reach
The latest news by Norvatis reveals that Kisqali is good for beating breast cancer in the early treatment stages, as opposed to just in its advanced phase. The development is especially promising as most breast cancer patients are diagnosed in the early stages. According to the new data from Norvatis, Kisqali will reduce the possibility of cancer returning just after early-stage treatments of chemotherapy and endocrine therapy have been undergone.
“We found that adding this drug to the best available standard therapy will decrease the recurrence rate by as much as 25%.” Doctor Dennis Slamon said in an interview with Good Morning America.
Salmon is the director of the Revlon/UCLA Women’s Cancer Research Program and lead investigator of the Kisqali clinical trial.
Medical Disparity
According to the American Cancer Society, breast cancer affects Black women more than it does their white counterparts.
“Black women have the lowest 5-year relative breast cancer survival rate compared to all other racial/ethnic groups for every stage of diagnosis and every breast cancer subtype,” the report stated.
The report also found that “Only 78% of Black women are living at least 5 years after their diagnosis of regional stage breast cancer compared to 88% of White women. For distant stage, the gap is slightly larger – 21% versus 32%.”
The reason for this statistic can be traced back to the disparity in healthcare designed against Black women. The new drug data could potentially change things. For now, Novartis plans to properly submit its findings to “regulatory authorities in the U.S. and Europe before end of year.”