Pill Can Replace Chemo for Lung Cancer

An article appeared this week in USA Today about a new drug, Iressa. Iressa seems to do less harm to patients, but costs thousands more than standard chemotherapy.

Quotes below are excerpts from that article, based on an article published last week in the British Lancet medical journal.

"Some advanced lung cancer patients already treated with chemotherapy might be able to skip some of the bad side effects of another series of chemo by taking a pill instead, a study suggests. An international study showed patients on Iressa, an expensive, newer targeted treatment, survived about as long as those on another course of chemotherapy.

"'This will provide us with another drug in our armory,' said Dr. Michael Seckl, head of Cancer Research UK's Lung Cancer Group at Imperial College in London. Seckl was not connected to the research.

"Few treatments for lung cancer exist, and most patients die within a few years of diagnosis. Lung cancer kills about 1.4 million people every year.

"In the study, paid for by AstraZeneca, researchers studied 1,433 advanced lung cancer patients in 24 countries, who had already gone through chemotherapy. Roughly half were given Iressa, or gefitinib, once a day. The other half were on docetaxel, a chemotherapy drug given intravenously every three weeks.

"Patients on Iressa survived about 7.6 months while those on chemotherapy survived about 8 months. After one year, 32% of patients on Iressa were still alive, versus 34% of chemotherapy patients.

"'In the patients that respond, it is very dramatic,' said Seckl, who has seen patients live years on the drug. He did not work with AstraZeneca on Iressa, but has consulted with them on other drugs.

"'Though the benefits of prolonging life are modest, patients on (Iressa) get a higher quality of life,' said Chris Twelves, a professor of clinical cancer oncology at Leeds University. "That should swing the pendulum in its favor."