Lung cancer
Cancer Research UK has launched a clinical trial into an alternative lung cancer drug. It hopes it will help to extend the lives of extremely ill patients.
The trial, which involves 664 patients across the UK, is testing a non-cytotoxic drug called Tarveca. If successful, it could be offered to patients with advanced lung cancer - a type of cancer that is very difficult to treat. Taken as a simple white pill, the drug targets a molecule called the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), which has a key role in the growth and extended lifespan of cancer cells. Scientists have discovered that EGFR could be particularly important for the growth and survival of some cancer cells and large amounts of the molecule are often present in the cells of non-small cell lung cancers.
At present, patients who have received this diagnosis are not usually offered any systemic treatment because they are too unwell to undergo chemotherapy. However, Tarceva could provide them with an alternative as it has minimal side effects, said chief investigator, Dr Siow Ming Lee, consultant at the UCL hospital trust and researcher for Cancer Research UK.
"Conventional chemotherapy is of limited use against advanced lung cancer. Tumour cells quickly become resistant to treatment, while chemotherapy doesn't properly distinguish between cancerous cells and healthy ones. It has too many side effects for many very ill lung cancer patients to cope with," he said.
"In the new trial, we're testing a rather more subtle approach to treating lung cancer, by targeting a molecule which is more important for cancer cells than for their healthy counterparts."
