Pill as Effective as Chemo for Lung Cancer

(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- For the first time, an oral pill has been shown to be just as effective at treating lung cancer as chemotherapy, with far fewer side effects, in a head-to-head trial.

The drug Iressa was tested in an international study involving nearly 1,500 patients with either locally advanced or metastatic disease from 24 countries. All of the patients had been previously treated for their lung cancer.

Patients received either 250 mg of the drug Iressa daily or the chemotherapy docetaxel every three weeks. Median survival for those receiving Iressa was 7.6 months and one-year survival was 32 percent, compared to 8 months and a 34-percent one-year survival for those taking chemotherapy.

Iressa patients said they experienced far fewer side effects, with the most common being a rash or diarrhea. However, the chemo group reported side effects such as low blood counts, infections and hair loss.

Edward S. Kim, M.D., an assistant professor in M.D. Anderson’s Department of Thoracic Head and Neck Medical Oncology and the study’s lead author, said the research represents a paradigm shift for the treatment of lung cancer.

“This is the largest study in lung cancer comparing an oral biologic therapy to chemotherapy, and shows, for the first time, that an oral biologic therapy is just as effective as chemotherapy,” he was quoted as saying.

However, Iressa is not currently available to U.S. patients. It was first approved in 2003 as a single agent treatment for patients whose advanced lung cancer had continued to progress despite treatment with platinum-based and docetaxel chemotherapy.

In 2005, a large, randomized lung cancer study reported that Iressa failed to significantly improve survival in patients with non-small cell lung cancer when compared with a placebo. The FDA then changed the drug’s labeling so that only cancer patients who had already received Iressa could continue to do so, but no new lung cancer patients were permitted to take it. It did, however, remain available to patients in other counties.

Kim said he hopes Iressa will once again be available to U.S. patients based on these findings. Until it does, he said physicians should have confidence to use Tarceva, another biologic oral therapy that has similar targets as Iressa and is commercially available in the U.S. for the treatment of lung cancer in the second line setting.

SOURCE: The Lancet, November 20, 2008

If this story or any other Ivanhoe story has impacted your life or prompted you or someone you know to seek or change treatments, please let us know by contacting Lindsay Braun at lbraun@ivanhoe.com.