Avastin gets European approval to treat lung cancer

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Avastin gets European approval to treat lung cancer

Posted Aug 24th 2007 5:01PM by Brian White
Filed under: Drug, Lung Cancer

Looks like Roche's Avastin anti-cancer drug has received approval by the European Union for the treatment of lung cancer. The treatment will be available to non-small cell lung cancer patients in concert with traditional chemotherapy.

Although Avastin has shown to prolong survival over one year in those diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer, one has to wonder why it's being suggested for use with chemotherapy at the same time. Will it help the cancer patient live easier through chemotherapy treatments?

Is prolonging the lives of cancer patients an additional year (or more) the sole purpose for the approval of Avastin? One has to ask these hard questions in an age where there are still no cures for cancer, although targeted drug like Avastin -- which targets and kills cancer cells by taking out their blood supply -- are indeed steps forward.

Tags: avastin, cancer drug, CancerDrug, lung cancer, LungCancer

Reader Comments

(Page 1)

1. "one has to wonder why it's being suggested for use with chemotherapy at the same time."

No one doesn't. Targeted drugs don't work very well aone.

"Is prolonging the lives of cancer patients an additional year (or more) the sole purpose for the approval of Avastin?"

Yes.

Posted at 10:02PM on Aug 24th 2007 by hchcec

2. A number of patients are treated not only with targeted therapy drugs, but with a combination of chemotherapy drugs. Oncologists prescribe patients one standard empiric chemotherapy regimen after another, until they find one that may work. But by that time it may be too late.

The ability of various agents to kill tumor and/or microvascular cells in the same tumor is highly variable among the different agents. There are so many agents out there now, doctors have a confusing array of choices. They don't know how to mix them together in the right order.

These very large molecule drugs don't have a convenient way of getting access to the large majority of cells. Plus, there is multicellular resistance, the drugs affecting only the cells on the outside may not kill these cells if they are in contact with cells on the inside which are protected from the drug. The cells may pass small molecules back and forth.

Do the drugs even enter the cell? Once entered, does it immediately get metabolized or pumped out, or does it accumulate? In some cases, these and other drugs, kill tumor cells without killing microvascular cells in the same time frame. In other cases they kill microvascular cells without killing tumor cells. In yet other cases they kill both types of cells or neither type of cells. The ability of these agents to kill tumor and microvascular cells in the same tumor is highly variable among the different agents.

Posted at 11:13PM on Aug 24th 2007 by Gregory D. Pawelski

3. You can treat cancer with Flavonoids:

www.treat-cancer.nl

Treat-Cancer.nl

Posted at 2:53PM on Aug 25th 2007 by Steven

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