Breakthrough Research Giving Breast Cancer Patients New Hope For Cure

A breast cancer breakthrough could change how some patients are treated. Doctors in England say they were able to get rid of tumors in less than two weeks.

The research is giving patients new hope for a cure. Doctors in the U.K. say they were able to wipe out tumors in less than two weeks in patients with an aggressive form of breast cancer.

In a small clinical trial, doctors combined two drugs, and gave them to early stage HER-2 positive patients. Eleven days later, 11 percent of patients had no tumors.

Oncologists say combination therapy is nothing new. In fact, the same two drugs used in the study are often given to late stage HER-2 patients because it's not approved for early use.

They tell us the results are promising, but are not game changing.

"This is not the answer for the treatment of her two positive breast cancer but it really makes us think because that means there's a population of patients or subset of patients that could probably get away from chemotherapy," said Dr. Roohi Ismail-Khan, Breast Cancer Specialist.

In fact, scientists say the new research may one day lead to fewer women needing chemotherapy to treat breast cancer.