Health Check: Breast cancer drug

Experts say a self exam, mammography and a doctor’s visit are the best ways to prevent breast cancer.

But if you are diagnosed with the disease, determining the best treatment is not as simple.

Fifty-year-old Linda Dippel has triple negative breast cancer, a type that lacks three known receptors, or proteins, found in most other breast cancers.

Successful treatments like Tamoxifen and Herceptin, which target receptors, are of no use against triple negative. So, patients have fewer treatment options.

“Unfortunately, it is very frustrating and it is very scary because it’s a higher grade of faster growing cancer,“ Dr. Rene Rubin, an oncologist, said.

Many, like Dippel, respond well to chemotherapy. But she’s already had a recurrence, which is common with triple negative.

The cancer is also more likely to spread to other organs.

“The only way that we are going to get new and better drugs is to go on a clinical trial. We need people to help us,“ Rubin said.

She said a new class of drugs called PARP inhibitors currently being tested, may offer women hope.

“To help prevent these cancers from coming back, that’s our goal,“ she said.

Dippel said she would consider becoming part of a clinical trial.

“I’ve learned through cancer that without all of us working together, we’re not gonna find the answer and we all have to be a part of it,“ Dippel said.

“She has such a spirit that she won’t give up. She’s very strong and I love her for it. That’s my lady,“ Dippel’s husband, Bob, said.

“I want to live. I have nephews. I have nieces. I have a lot of people and I have a lot of work to do, that I want to be around for a million years,“ Dippel said.

Doctors said the earlier triple negative breast cancer is detected, the better the chances of overcoming the disease.

Women with the BRCA1 mutation are at higher risk and may want to consider having a mammogram before the age of 40.