Breast cancer drug increasing life expectancy in patients - AmericaNowNews.com

Breast cancer drug increasing life expectancy in patients

Most women diagnosed with breast cancer or cancer that's spread are treated with one of two chemotherapy drugs.

Both have been shown to stop the cancer from growing up to 70 percent of the time.

When they don't work, doctors often decide to attack the cancer with Halaven.

This drug showed that it could make women live longer than what are considered the standard treatments in this particular setting.

Made from a type of sea sponge, early studies show Halaven can add as much as two and a half months to the life of metastatic breast cancer patients.

It also have very few side effects usually associated with chemotherapy, like nausea, vomiting and hair loss.

The fact patients who get Halaven can finish a single treatment in as little as five minutes is nothing to sneeze at, either.

Some of the chemotherapy drugs have to be given over several hours which, means the person has to sit in a lounge chair or a bed and have the medicine infused in their vein.

Anyone dealing with a life-threatening illness like cancer knows the value of time.

For them, the ability to spend more time with people they care about and doing things they want to do, is significant.

Copyright 2012 America Now. All rights reserved.

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