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Herceptin Brings New Age in Breast Cancer Care

from USA Today

Barbara Bradfield has lived to see dramatic changes in breast cancer. When she was diagnosed in 1989, Bradfield's tumor—which produced an overabundance of a protein called HER2—was considered especially deadly. Today, women with tumors like hers have some of the best survival rates in breast cancer.

Experts say the drug that has kept Bradfield healthy for so long, Herceptin, has changed the nature of breast cancer and helped doctors better understand what causes the disease.

In the 10 years since it was approved, doctors say Herceptin also has encouraged the development of a growing arsenal of new therapies that target cancer cells but spare patients from many of the grueling side effects of traditional chemotherapy. Bradfield, who received chemo before and during her Herceptin therapy, developed permanent hearing loss and numbness in her fingers because of those older drugs.