According to a data presented at a medical meeting on Saturday, Pfizer Inc. manufactured drug Xalkori, which has been quite effective in treating lung cancer patients with specific tumors, will now be shrinking the tumors and even few rare forms of the disease too. Xalkori is a prescription medicine and treats non-small cell lung cancer that has spread to all parts of body due to a defect in a gene known as ALK fusion gene. Chemically known as crizotinib, diagnostically it could test the mutations in the gene. About one to two percent of these patients are believed to be ROS1 positive, a situation where two separate genes get fused and combines. This fusion of otherwise split genes, can cause wide range of cancers in humans and NSCLC is one such type.
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The study was conducted on fifty patients suffering from (NSCLC). Their cancer was a result of rearrangement of the ROS1 gene. In 72% of the people, the drug could condense the growth of the tumor significantly. And in the nine percent the tumor was actually halted from growth.
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“This is the first definitive study to establish crizotinib’s activity in a large group of patients with ROS1-positive lung cancer and confirms that ROS1 is a bona fide therapeutic target in those patients”, Dr. Alice Shaw, the study’s lead investigator from the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center in Boston, said in a statement. “The remissions induced by crizotinib in ROS1 positive patients are quite prolonged and resistance appears to emerge later, on average, that what we have seen with other targeted therapies for lung cancer and melanoma.
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Researchers observed that the average duration of drug response is seventeen months and still half of the patients who showed no sign of tumor progression were given two doses a day.
This is a great example of success in personalized medicine and doctors feel this drug very essential for the ROS patients. For them it can really revolutionize the field of medication, typically related to tumors.
The study has published in the New England Journal of Medicine, was presented by the researcher at the meeting of European society for Medical Oncology in Madrid.
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The study was conducted on fifty patients suffering from (NSCLC). Their cancer was a result of rearrangement of the ROS1 gene. In 72% of the people, the drug could condense the growth of the tumor significantly. And in the nine percent the tumor was actually halted from growth.
See Also: WHO pledges $400 million aid for three African countries worst hit by Ebola
“This is the first definitive study to establish crizotinib’s activity in a large group of patients with ROS1-positive lung cancer and confirms that ROS1 is a bona fide therapeutic target in those patients”, Dr. Alice Shaw, the study’s lead investigator from the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center in Boston, said in a statement. “The remissions induced by crizotinib in ROS1 positive patients are quite prolonged and resistance appears to emerge later, on average, that what we have seen with other targeted therapies for lung cancer and melanoma.
See Also: CDC confirms the ravages of Enterovirus-D68 in Ohio
Researchers observed that the average duration of drug response is seventeen months and still half of the patients who showed no sign of tumor progression were given two doses a day.
This is a great example of success in personalized medicine and doctors feel this drug very essential for the ROS patients. For them it can really revolutionize the field of medication, typically related to tumors.
The study has published in the New England Journal of Medicine, was presented by the researcher at the meeting of European society for Medical Oncology in Madrid.
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