British Researchers May Have Found Lung Cancer Breakthrough Drug

London, England (AHN) – Researchers in Britain are readying for trials of a new drug that could offer hope to those suffering from inoperable lung cancer.

The researchers, from Imperial College London, said in a statement that the drug eliminated tumors in half the mice that were given it in recent experiments. The drug also stopped lung cancer tumors from growing and becoming resistant to treatment, the researchers said.

Many lung cancer patients, about 1 in 5, have small cell lung cancer, which spread quickly because the tumor cells grow and divide faster than normal cells. Because the cells spread so fast, removing the tumors surgically is often not possible.

The cancer is usually treated with chemotherapy, with or without radiation. This treatment often works in reducing tumor size, but the tumors usually grow back quickly and become resistant to further treatment. Only about 3 percent of these patients are expected to survive for five years after diagnosis.

The drug the researchers are working with, which they call PD173074, blocks a receptor that fuels a growth hormone that triggers a survival mechanism in tumor cells that makes them resistant to chemotherapy. In test tube laboratory models, the drug stopped cancer cells from proliferating and from becoming resistant to chemotherapy.

In one animal study, it eliminated tumors in 50 percent of mice, and in another mouse model, the drug enhanced the effect of standard chemotherapy.

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