Studies using tissue samples are difficult in lung cancer patients, but some will begin soon with Tarceva at Memorial Sloan-Kettering.
She is about to begin a clinical trial to test Avastin in lung cancer patients whose cancer has spread to the brain.
The research, Explaining Variations in Lung Cancer in England, also found significant differences in how lung cancer patients are treated in different parts of the country.
Based on the new resultsRoche is planning to launch a late-stage trial of its PD-L1 inhibitor in lung-cancer patients, while Bristol-Myers is moving its combination regimen into late-phase studies as well.
But when the two drugs were combined in 12 patients with advanced lung cancer, tumors shrunk in 25% of the patients and stabilized in another 40%--much more impressive results than the two drugs produce alone.
In a small midstage trial of the drug that ended in 2006, lung cancer patients lived years longer than is typical with the deadly disease.
It shrunk tumors in 10 of 18 lung cancer patients with a particular gene mutation that occurs in 5% of lung cancers, often in younger nonsmokers.
The vaccine showed a trend towards higher survival in its initial trial, is now in a final stage trial in 1300 patients with inoperable lung cancer.
Its most promising cancer drug in testing helps just 5% of lung cancer patients with a particular tumor mutation.
One of the studies it helped fund has led to a promising antibody-based treatment called anti-PD-1, which activates the immune system against cancer and helps shrink or eliminate tumors in melanoma, lung, and kidney cancer patients.
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In a study conducted with many patients in Japan, 28% of non-small cell lung cancer patients saw their tumors shrink with Iressa, compared with 10% of Caucasians.
In one early trial on 64 cancer patients, 16 had advanced lung cancer--and tumors shriveled dramatically in 4 of them.
Wyeth's Torisel didn't help small-cell lung cancer patients in a 2007 trial.
Moreover, the company argues that given Iressa's mild side effects, why not give it to all lung cancer patients in search of the one-tenth who will do well on it?
Now Glaxo is conducting giant final-stage trial in over 2000 early-stage lung cancer patients.
Last April, Tarceva, promoted with OSI Pharmaceuticals (nasdaq: OSIP - news - people ), extended survival in non-small-cell lung cancer patients.
In a study conducted with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and published in Nature Medicine, found that more than half of patients with lung and colon cancer might benefit from the test.
Worse, Iressa failed to extend the lives of patients with lung cancer in two much larger tests involving over 2, 000 people.
Tarceva has already produced promising results in a trial on patients with non-small cell lung cancer who had already been heavily treated with chemotherapy.
AstraZeneca's shocker Monday: Iressa, which had had an effect in 10% or more of non-small-cell lung cancer patients who had failed chemotherapy, did not seem to help at all when added to patients who were on chemotherapy.
In trials unveiled in May, Iressa shrank tumors in 10% or more of patients with non-small cell lung cancer who had failed other chemotherapies.
As in lung cancer, the drug extended the survival of at least half of the patients by several months or more.
This is the same group of patients excluded from studies of Genentech 's Avastin in lung cancer because they were more likely to have dangerous bleeding.
For lung cancer, 8.8% of patients survived five years in the UK and 18.4% in the best performing country, Canada.
AstraZeneca has also offered Iressa for free to more than 5, 000 patients through their oncologists in a compassionate-use program for lung cancer.
Two years ago Pfizer reported that six patients in its trial--all former smokers--got lung cancer after using Exubera, though the sample was too small to prove it caused the cancer.
Louis, found that a 25% stronger dose of radiation used to treat patients with one type of lung cancer were more dangerous for the patients -- and less effective in treating the disease.
In another trial reported today in the New England Journal of Medicine, doctors reported that 57% of 82 lung cancer patients with the ALK gene alteration experienced dramatic tumor shrinkage with the Pfizer drug.
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Working independently, Meyerson's team at Dana-Farber and a group of researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital led by cancer geneticist Daniel Haber analyzed tumor samples from lung cancer patients who'd taken Iressa, and searched for mutations in the EGFR gene.
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