{"id":233638,"date":"2026-03-19T03:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T08:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/combination-treatment-benefits-patients-with-advanced-breast-cancer-that-has-spread-to-the-brain"},"modified":"2026-03-19T03:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T08:34:08","slug":"combination-treatment-benefits-patients-with-advanced-breast-cancer-that-has-spread-to-the-brain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/combination-treatment-benefits-patients-with-advanced-breast-cancer-that-has-spread-to-the-brain","title":{"rendered":"Combination treatment benefits patients with advanced breast cancer that has spread to the brain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/combination-treatment-benefits-patients-with-advanced-breast-cancer-that-has-spread-to-the-brain.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Patients with leptomeningeal metastasis (LM) have historically had few treatment options. Now, researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have found a combination of targeted therapies, tucatinib and trastuzumab, plus the chemotherapy drug, capecitabine, may improve symptoms and extend survival in some breast cancer patients with LM.<\/p>\n<p>The Phase II study, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s43018-026-01120-7\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> today in <i>Nature Cancer<\/i>, included 17 female patients with newly diagnosed LM and HER2+ breast cancer. Median overall survival (OS) in those treated with the combination therapy increased from a historical average of 4.4 months to 10 months. At the 18-month mark, 41% of patients were still alive. Under the combination treatment, disease progression also stalled, with a median of seven months before central nervous system progression, and 7 of 12 evaluable patients also had improved neurologic deficits.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe combination achieved a clinically meaningful improvement in overall survival compared to historical controls,\u201d said lead author Rashmi Murthy, M.D., associate professor of Breast Medical Oncology. \u201cFor these patients, who often face limited treatment options, our results represent a step forward, offering new hope in how we treat and manage leptomeningeal metastasis.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Patients with leptomeningeal metastasis (LM) have historically had few treatment options. Now, researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have found a combination of targeted therapies, tucatinib and trastuzumab, plus the chemotherapy drug, capecitabine, may improve symptoms and extend survival in some breast cancer patients with LM. The Phase II study, published [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-233638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233638\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}