A few highlights out of ASCO , the big cancer conference on in Orlando this weekend: Roche’s breast-cancer drug Herceptin extended the lives of some patients with stomach cancer. The drug is used in people whose tumors produce excessive amounts of a protein called her-2. That occurs in about 20 of breast cancer and stomach cancer cases. Patients with advanced stomach cancer that overexpressed her-2 survived a median of 13.8 months when they received Herceptin and chemotherapy, compared with 11.1 months for patients who received chemotherapy and a placebo, Dow Jones Newswires reports . A new class of experimental drugs may help women with types of breast cancer that are difficult to treat with existing therapies. The drugs, known as PARP inhibitors, prevent damaged tumor cells from repairing themselves. While the drugs are still in early stages of development, some have shown promise in human trials. Merck, Abbott, AstraZeneca and Sanofi-Aventis are all working on compounds in this class. Here’s a story on the drugs from this morning’s WSJ . Hormone drugs and antidepressants

may affect cancer patients, studies suggested. In one very large study of giving hormone pills to women to receive the symptoms of menopause, women who took a certain hormone combination and went on to develop lung cancer were more likely to die of the disease than women who took a placebo and went on to get lung cancer, the AP reports . Researchers urged caution in interpreting the finding, because there have only been 106 lung cancer deaths in the study so far, too few to make broad conclusions about risk. In a separate study, researchers found that women taking certain antidepressants along with the breast-cancer drug tamoxifen were more likely to see their tumors return than women who were taking tamoxifen alone. The drugs, which inhibit an enzyme called CYP2D6, include Paxil, Prozac and Zoloft. Laboratory studies have suggested the drugs might interfere with Tamoxifen, Dow Jones Newswires notes . Photo of ASCO 2008: ASCO/Todd Buchanan

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ASCO: New Research on Breast, Stomach and Lung Cancers