Now Glaxo is conducting giant final-stage trial in over 2000 early-stage lung cancer patients.
The drug did seem to help non-small-cell lung cancer patients live slightly longer compared with a control group.
Some 60% of all lung cancer patients die within a year of diagnosis, and 85% die within five years.
Its most promising cancer drug in testing helps just 5% of lung cancer patients with a particular tumor mutation.
Studies using tissue samples are difficult in lung cancer patients, but some will begin soon with Tarceva at Memorial Sloan-Kettering.
Only 30% of lung cancer patients survived more than a year past diagnoses compared to 96% of those with breast cancer.
Only 6% of lung cancer patients and 45% of those with bowel cancer survive more than five years beyond diagnosis in Scotland.
She is about to begin a clinical trial to test Avastin in lung cancer patients whose cancer has spread to the brain.
Wyeth's Torisel didn't help small-cell lung cancer patients in a 2007 trial.
Analysts are expecting a close vote because, although Iressa has disappointed, it does seem to help some of the sickest lung cancer patients.
Trained dogs were asked to sniff out a study group that included lung cancer patients, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients, and healthy volunteers.
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Last April, Tarceva, promoted with OSI Pharmaceuticals (nasdaq: OSIP - news - people ), extended survival in non-small-cell lung cancer patients.
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 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.
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.
At the end of two years, 22% of non-small-cell lung cancer patients who received Avastin with their chemotherapy were alive, compared to 17% who received only chemotherapy.
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?
Northwick Park Hospital and Clinical Research Centre, Harrow, cut its backlog of routine CT scans from 18 weeks to zero for lung cancer patients, by ensuring the scanner was used to full capacity.
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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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.
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.
On the other hand, some on Wall Street worry that availability of a gene test to predict response might limit the market for Iressa and Tarceva to only a small minority of lung cancer patients whose tumors have the gene mutations.
Monday night, Genentech (nyse: DNA - news - people ) said its cancer drug Avastin extended the median survival of lung cancer patients by two months, or 23%, to 12.5 months, when added on top of Taxol, the off-patent chemotherapy drug developed by Bristol-Myers Squibb (nyse: BMY - news - people ).
The data show that, after failure of second-line chemotherapy, lung-cancer patients rarely get any added survival time from further treatments and often suffer significant side effects.
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.
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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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.
Instead of aiming at broad tumor categories, such as all patients with lung cancer or colon cancer, the new medicines target specific subsets of patients whose tumors have particular gene mutations.
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