JEDDAH: A new breast cancer treatment improves survival rates by an average 20 percent, with life expectancy lengthened by 29.9 months.

This is according to Ahmed Al-Wabari, breast oncology consultant at King Fahd Specialist Hospital in Dammam, who outlined these results in a paper he presented at a medical forum in Alkhobar recently.

The forum included 120 local and international doctors and specialists who discussed the latest studies on evidence-based treatments for patients with advanced breast cancer, which included the most dangerous, HER2.

Shadi Al-Khayyat, consultant in oncology at King Abdulaziz University Hospital in Jeddah, said this new treatment targets the HER2 cancer cells without damaging normal cells.

The forum discussed the most advanced antibiotics to combat cancer cells, which demonstrated considerable levels of effectiveness even after the return of the disease. This comes after United States health agencies and the European Commission agreed to adopt the treatment (T-DM1) to treat advanced cases of breast cancer.

Participants at the forum said the Kingdom’s hospitals were effectively dealing with breast cancer, particularly after early detection, because of significant research and clinical trials taking place in the country.