It is not known if patients in the stomach cancer trial included both males and females. Exclusionary criteria were not made available for either of the studies. All of the patients were receiving standard chemotherapy treatments, in addition to receiving Herceptin (Pollack, 2009). The sample populations for these studies were large for a clinical trial. Many times, it is difficult to find patients that fit the criteria for inclusion in the study. This was not a problem for these studies. The sample population of the study improves the validity of the study and confidence in the drug to be effective in patients that meet the criteria for administration of Herceptin. The study design in both cases used a comparative study. One group was the test group and would receive the treatment being tested, in this case Herceptin. The other group would be the control group and would not receive the drug. Although it was not revealed in the article, many clinical trials at this stage are double-blind studies. In this study technique, a sham treatment is designed that mimics the real treatment, only without the active ingredients. Neither the doctor, nor the patient knows which study group to which they belong. They do not know if they have received the real or sham treatment. This helps to eliminate external bias in the study and improvise the validity of the results obtained.

Conclusion

The results of the stomach cancer...

In the triple negative breast cancer study, those that received Herceptin in addition to standard chemotherapy lived an average of 9.2 months, as compared to 5.7 months for those that received chemotherapy alone.
This article outlined two major studies, one for triple negative breast cancer and one for stomach cancer. It also mentioned several other minor studies. The focus of the article was on the use of Herceptin in difficult to treat cancers. Both the stomach cancer trial and the triple negative breast cancer trial demonstrated the ability of Herceptin to slow the progress of cancer and significantly extended the lives of cancer patients. With the information provided, one must agree with the conclusion that Herceptin is effective in extending the lives of patients with advanced, difficult to treat types of cancer.

References

F. Hoffman-L Roche Ltd. (2009). Herceptin (Trastuuzumab). Retrieved June 6, 2009 from http://www.roche.com/products/product-details.htm?type=product&id=102.

Pollack, A. (2009). Promising Results in Stomach and Breast Cancer Drugs. The New York

Times. May 31. 2009. Retrieved June 7, 2009 from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/01/business/01drug.html