New Treatment Could Prolong Lung Cancer Patients Lives

Boston (dbTechno) - Results from a long awaited trial of the new drug Erbitux, which targets patients with non-small cell lung cancer show that it can prolong the patients lives by up to five weeks when combined with chemotherapy. To this point, the medical community has known that the drug will improve survival, but now the question is, how much does that help?

Erbitux attacks the epidermal growth factor, which escaltes this type of cancer. It has previously been approved for patients with cancer of the colon, head and the neck. There have been other studies with Erbitux that did not show any improvements, and the fact that this one has shown a slight improvement, however minor, is a big deal.