Seven British women saw breast tumours vanish a week and a half after diagnosis
Doctors have completely wiped out cancer in patients just 11 days after they were diagnosed.
Experts hailed the results of the breakthrough twin attack therapy as "staggering" and "mind boggling".
Medics said the lightning fast eradication of their tumours is the fastest ever response to a treatment.
Usually, patients have to be prescribed a drug for months or even years to see such dramatic results.
But doctors were stunned to see cancer disappear after they decided to try combining two cancer drugs to tackle tumours before surgery.
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Breast cancer cells
In a world first, seven British women saw their breast cancer tumours vanish a week and a half after being told they had the disease.
Incredibly, one of the seven had a tumour as large as 3cm completely destroyed with the powerful cocktail of two existing cancer drugs.
PA
Herceptin, one of the drugs
Tykerb, the other drug
A further 11 British women were stunned to see their tumours shrink to leave only "minimal residual disease".
Experts said the development could revolutionise treatment by sparing thousands of women chemotherapy.
The "amazing" findings were presented today at the European Breast Cancer Conference in Amsterdam.
Describing the moment medics realised what had happened, breast cancer doctor Prof David Cameron, of the University of Edinburgh , who helped lead the trials, said: "It was only when the pathologist was scratching around in the lab saying 'Where is the tumour?' that it became apparent that there was no tumour."
He said they still did not know for sure why the two drugs worked so well together.
But the suggestion is that they can better work together to block cancer cells from multiplying, kill them off and stop them from coming back.
And Prof Cameron said the combination therapy results would have "implications" for the treatment of other cancers.
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