Incredible hope for lung cancer patients as doctors reveal new drugs are adding years to people’s lives
- The new drugs could add months or even years to the lives of eligible patients
- Researchers say it’s a “really big 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 range of targeted and immune-boosting drugs could add months or even years to life expectancy, 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: ‘It had such a terrible prognosis. And now there are people being healed that we never thought would be healed.”
The new treatment options include Tagrisso from AstraZeneca and Lorbrena from Imfinzi and Pfizer.
The drugs are all approved by the Food and Drug Administration and are used to treat even the most notoriously drug-resistant forms of lung cancer.
Matt Hiznay was diagnosed with stage 4 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 approximately 125,000 Americans each year.
For decades it was considered a death sentence, but new treatments suggest that is changing.
According to one of the new studies, Tagrisso can contain lung cancer in some patients in the third stage for almost three years longer than chemotherapy and radiation alone.
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 to just 8 percent of patients taking an older drug.
Dr. David Spigel, chief scientific officer at the Sarah Cannon Research Institute in Tennessee, said: ‘These results are truly outstanding. A very big 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 range of older treatments, he took part in a trial for Lorbrena 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 to only 8 percent of patients taking an older drug.
According to one of the new studies, Tagrisso can contain lung cancer for almost three years longer than chemotherapy and radiation alone.
He has been promoted, married and has 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 looking around and saying 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 the cancer is detected too late to be treatable at all.
But Dr. Lauren Averett Byers, a lung cancer oncologist at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, told the Journal, “To see something where we measure benefits in years versus months is a huge step in the right direction.”