natalie Posted October 2, 2003 Posted October 2, 2003 I read somewhere about a month ago that they are testing a cocktail type therapy for treatment. Not IV insertion, something that patients can drink...does anyone know anymore about it? What is the name of it? John, oh most resourceful one, help me out here. Thanks in advance for your responses. Quote
john Posted October 3, 2003 Posted October 3, 2003 Here is one cocktail of Avastain and Tarceva. Another "cocktail" is being used for BAC (Herceptin and Tarceva). I have read in a few article that cancer has many "signaling pathways" that allow it to keep growing. If one pathway is shut down by treatment, it finds a way to use another one and that may be a reason for recurrence and drug resistance. By using multiple drugs that attack different pathways, the cancer may stay in remission. New targeted therapies look promising in lung cancer Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist Two new drugs, which act in different ways on cancer cells, caused shrinkage of lung tumors in a small group of patients. Researchers at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, and elsewhere, have been testing bevacizumab and erlotinib, on a group of 23 patients with recurrent advanced non-small cell lung cancer. Bevacizumab is a monoclonal antibody which blocks the growth of the blood supply to the tumor. Erlotinib acts in a different way, interfering with a molecular pathway inside the cell which makes the tumor grow. In this study, the drug cocktail led to a good response in five of the patients, where their tumors shrank by more than 50 per cent. In one of these patients, the improvement was maintained for nearly a year. Other patients experienced a smaller, but still significant, shrinkage. The researchers were surprised by how well-tolerated the new drug regime was, even at the highest dose tested. The study is still ongoing, and it's to be hoped that it fulfils its early promise. Source University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center 3rd June 2003 Quote
natalie Posted October 3, 2003 Author Posted October 3, 2003 Thank you so much John, I appreciate it! I knew you'd come through! Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.