[ot] Scientists Cite Advances on Two Kinds of Cancer

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BlankJune 5, 2010

Scientists Cite Advances on Two Kinds of Cancer

By ANDREW POLLACK

CHICAGO — Using two opposite strategies, one focused and one broad, scientists

say they have made progress in taming two of the most intractable types of

cancer.

The focused approach shrank tumors significantly in a majority of patients with

advanced lung cancer marked by a specific genetic abnormality.

Even though the clinical trial was small (just 82 people, with no control

group), the results were considered so striking for such sick patients that the

study will be featured Sunday at the main session of the annual meeting of the

American Society of Clinical Oncology here.

“This is a phenomenal example of finding the right patient and the right drug

very early on,” said Dr. Pasi A. Janne of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in

Boston, who was involved in the trial.

The broader strategy uses a drug that could potentially become a universal

treatment for all types of cancer. It works by releasing a brake on the body’s

immune system, letting the immune system attack the cancer more vigorously.

In a study of patients who had advanced melanoma, those who got an experimental

drug lived a median of about 10 months, compared with 6.4 months for those in a

control group. After two years, about 23 percent of those who got the drug were

alive, compared with 14 percent in the control group.

Lung cancer and melanoma are among the hardest cancers to treat. So the studies

are being viewed as significant advances, though far from cures.

Dr. J. O’Day of the Angeles Clinic and Research Institute in Santa

, Calif., a lead investigator in the melanoma trial, called the result

“historic,” and added, “This is the first randomized placebo-controlled trial

ever to show a survival benefit in Stage 4 melanoma.”

Bristol-Myers Squibb, which sponsored the trial, is planning to apply for

regulatory approval to sell the drug, ipilimumab.

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