- New medications can add months or even years to the lives of eligible patients.
- Researchers say it’s a “really important step forward” in lung cancer care
New drug treatments have offered incredible hope to lung cancer patients, as doctors say they can add years to the lives of eligible people.
The new set of targeted, immune-boosting drugs can increase life expectancy by months or even years, according to results released this weekend at the American Society of Clinical Oncology conference in Chicago.
Dr. Angela DeMichele, medical oncologist at Penn Medicine, told the Wall Street Journal: ‘I had such an abysmal prognosis. And now we have people who are being cured who we never thought would be cured.”
New treatment options include AstraZeneca’s Tagrisso and Imfinzi and Pfizer’s Lorbrena.
All drugs are approved by the Food and Drug Administration and are used to treat even the most notoriously resistant forms of lung cancer.
Matt Hiznay was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer in 2011 and has been taking Lorbrena for nine years.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among men and women in the US, killing about 125,000 Americans each year.
For decades it has been considered a death sentence, but new treatments suggest that is changing.
Tagrisso can contain lung cancer for almost three years longer than chemotherapy and radiation alone for some stage three patients, according to one of the new studies.
The immunotherapy drug Imfinzi can extend the lives of some patients with aggressive lung cancer by almost two years.
And a third study presented at the conference found that 60 percent of advanced patients were still alive five years after taking Lorbrena compared with only 8 percent of patients taking an older drug.
Dr David Spigel, scientific director of the Sarah Cannon Research Institute in Tennessee, said: ‘These results are truly surprising. A huge step forward in lung cancer care.’
Matt Hiznay, from Ohio, was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer in 2011 and has been taking Lorbrena for nine years.
After trying a number of older treatments, she joined a Lorbrena trial in 2015 and has been on it ever since.
A study presented at the conference found that 60 percent of advanced patients were still alive five years after taking Lorbrena compared with only 8 percent of patients taking an older drug.
Tagrisso can hold off lung cancer almost three years longer than chemotherapy and radiation alone for some stage three patients, according to one of the new studies.
She earned her doctorate, married, and had a daughter.
He told The Journal: “It became a little easier to see the future again.”
Dr. Lecia Sequist, a lung cancer specialist at Mass General Cancer Center, said the results show how far cancer treatment has come.
She said, “It’s like Dorothy looked around and said we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
Despite the progress, researchers say there is still a long way to go. Often, the cancer returns and becomes incurable, or is detected too late to be treated in the first place.
But Dr. Lauren Averett Byers, a lung cancer oncologist at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, told The Journal: “Seeing something where we’re measuring the benefit in years versus months is a big step in the right direction.” .
