By ANDREW POLLACK - May 31, 2009

ORLANDO, Fla. — The breast cancer drug Herceptin may now have a role in treating stomach cancer as well, according to study results announced here on Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Scientists also announced that a new class of drugs called PARP inhibitors has shown promise against hard-to-treat forms of breast cancer and that a cancer vaccine for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma that struck out twice might have succeeded on a third try.

In a study sponsored by Roche, which sells Herceptin, stomach cancer patients who received Herceptin in addition to standard chemotherapy lived a median of 13.8 months compared with 11.1 months for those who treated with standard chemotherapy alone.

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