The latest Globocan data showed that there were 2,261,419 new cases of breast cancer recorded worldwide in 2020. A total of 684,996 deaths were also reported in the same year, pushing the disease to rank fifth in global mortality.
There is also systemic treatment, where specific medicines are injected into the bloodstream or given orally “to go throughout the body and reach cancer cells that may have spread beyond the breast.”Cancer ‘now treatable’ “Options for treatment include a subcutaneous injection that takes about 5 minutes to administer or a three-hour intravenous administration that also requires an additional two hours or so for preparation,” said Dr. Mendoza.
Before this, a biologic drug called Trastuzumab was the available option for targeted therapy used for the treatment of breast cancer patients with human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 .