AIDS drug is beneficial to breast cancer patients

An AIDS drug proves beneficial to breast cancer patients report researchers in Hong Kong. They discovered this anti-viral drug helps reduce the risk of reactivating the hepatitis B virus in women who are being treated with chemotherapy for breast cancer.

"In several developing countries, as many as 12 percent of breast cancer patients carry the hepatitis B virus. These patients are at risk of developing HBV reactivation during chemotherapy, which is a well-known complication resulting in varying degrees of liver damage that may lead to death," says Winnie Yeo, M.D., a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Dr. Yeo explains that chemotherapy suppresses the immune system, which allows for the HBV to replicate and spread through the blood stream. After chemotherapy is completed, the immune system recovers, and its attempt to clear HBV causes flare-ups of the virus.

She finds the anti-viral drug lamivudine can reduce the risk of HBV reactivation during and after chemotherapy. This drug was initially used for treating HIV in AIDS patients.

Dr. Yeo's study compared incidence of HBV reactivation between chemotherapy patients receiving lamivudine and a control group. Only 7 percent of the chemotherapy patients taking lamivudine suffered HBV reactivation compared to 41 percent in the control group.

"These results show very clearly that prophylactic lamivudine significantly reduces the incidence of both HBV reactivation and hepatitis. Therefore, I propose that breast cancer patients who are hepatitis B carriers should have anti-viral treatment before the start of chemotherapy," concludes Dr. Yeo.

SOURCE: 4th Annual European Breast Cancer Conference in Hamburg, Germany, March 16-20, 2004