New Treatments for Tough Cancers Show Promise

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"The worst category are patients who have recurrent or metastatic disease," said study author Dr. Jan B. Vermorken, a professor of oncology at the University of Antwerp, in Belgium. "These patients are being treated in general with chemotherapy but, over the last 25 years, not much has changed in outcome when we treat these patients with chemotherapy. The median survival is six to seven months."

But patients who received Erbitux plus chemotherapy lived a median of 10.1 months, compared to 7.4 months in the control group, which had received only chemotherapy.

"This is a very unique observation. We have never seen this before in the last 25 years -- that adding a drug to chemotherapy is giving a better survival for these patients," Vermorken said.

One side effect, a skin rash, is particularly problematic, however. "It's not a mild rash," Langer said. "It potentially compromises quality of life. This isn't a free ride."

Two additional studies presented at the press conference looked at markers of lung and head and neck cancers.

Researchers at Duke University identified molecular pathways that are altered in advanced non-small cell lung cancer that could offer a new target for treatment.

The final study, funded by Bristol-Myers-Squibb, showed that variations in genes involved with metabolizing chemotherapy drugs may help explain why American and Japanese patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer respond differently to therapies.

"We looked at normal DNA within the host [patient] and how to exploit these molecular profiles to improve therapeutic outcome," explained study author Dr. David Gandara, director of clinical research at the University of California, Davis.

More information

The National Cancer Institute has more on lung cancer.