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Joseph Sparano said. The TAILORx study was n’t the only breakthrough research on breast cancer that was presented at ASCO. Dr. Helena Earl, a professor from the University of Cambridge in Britain, looked at whether women with HER-2 positive early-stage breast cancer could be treated with the drug Herceptin for 6 months instead of 12. Though Herceptin has improved survival and recurrence rates for over a decade in breast cancer patients, the drug is associated with a risk for heart damage in long-term users. When Herceptin was first introduced the 12-month period was almost plucked out of the air and there was n’t any evidence of how long you woud need to carry on with a targeted treatment to get the effect.