New study shows drug helps lung cancer patients live longer
Published: August 4, 2005
A study in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that the drug Tarceva helps lung cancer patients live longer. Experts say they don’t yet completely understand how the drug works, and doctors disagree about the best way to predict which patients it will benefit most.
Researchers last year announced the discovery of genetic mutations, found in about 10 percent of patients, that make these people more likely to respond to Tarceva and a similar drug, Iressa. In these patients, tumors shrunk by about half. Doctors quickly developed tests to predict the patients in whom Tarceva and Iressa would work best.
The new study suggests these tests are of little use.
In an international study of 731 patients led by the National Cancer Institute of Canada, researchers found that genetic mutations don’t help them predict which Tarceva patients will survive longer.
Patients were more likely to respond to Tarceva if their tumors contained a certain protein or had lots of copies of a particular gene, says Frances Shepherd, a professor of medicine at Princess Margaret Hospital and a lead author of the article.
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