News out of London, tells that some advanced lung cancer patients who have already been treated with chemotherapy, might be able to skip some of the bad side effects of another series of chemo by taking a pill instead. This was an international study that showed patients on Iressa, an expensive, newer targeted treatment, survived about as long as those on another course of chemotherapy.
Unfortunately, few treatments exist for lung cancer and most patients die within a few years of diagnosis. Lung cancer kills about 1.4 million people every year. Iressa, made by AstraZeneca PLC, is one of several new targeted drugs that attack specific growth receptors on cancer cells, doing less harm to patients.
Those patients on Iressa survived about 7.6 months while those on chemo survived about 8 months. After one year, 32 percent of patients on Iressa were still alive, while 34 percent of chemotherapy patients were still alive. Frankly, these figures don't look much different to me and if the pill is so much more expensive, it doesn't appear to give those with lung cancer any longer to live, in fact it looks like they live less time.
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