One study discovered that an experimental drug called crizotinib shrank tumors in the majority of lung cancer patients with a specific gene variant. An estimated 4 percent of lung cancer patients, or roughly 40,000 people worldwide, have this gene variant according to the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance education center which tracks health and lengevity conditions impacting individuals.
A second study found that a double-chemotherapy regimen benefited elderly patients, who represent the majority of those with lung cancer worldwide. Roughly 100,000 patients with lung cancer in the United States are over the age of 70.
According to scientists, the first study found that 87 percent of 82 patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer with a specific mutation of the ALK gene, which makes that gene fuse with another, responded robustly to treatment with crizotinib, which is made by Pfizer Inc.
S cientists noted that the patients were treated for an average of six months, and more than 90 percent saw their tumors shrink in size and 72 percent of participants remained progression-free six months after treatment.
The fusion gene was first discovered to play a role in this type of lung cancer in 2007. Researchers are now working on a phase 3 trial of the drug. The Korean researchers reported financial ties to Pfizer.
The second study, a phase 3 trial, involved 451 patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer aged 70 to 89. The study had first expected to enroll 520 patients, but it was halted early when good survival results were seen in the group taking the combination therapy.
Currently, elderly patients are typically given just one chemotherapy drug, with younger patients more likely to get two or more.
In the double-therapy group, the median survival increased by four months [to 10.3 months], which is quite unusual in thoracic oncology. Forty-five percent of patients survived one year, which is also quite unusual.
Finally, a phase 3 study out of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston found patients receiving the targeted drug vandetanib combined with chemotherapy had a 21 percent decline in disease progression compared to those receiving chemotherapy alone. Median progression-free survival in the combination arm was 17.3 weeks vs. 14 weeks in the control group. This study was published in The Lancet Oncology.
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