What’s New – Cancer In Plain English – Cancer Information

In the treatment of lung cancer does it help to receive chemotherapy after surgery? – YES!

RemwesMedical — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 16:22:21 +0000

A key factor when it comes to treating lung cancer is that if the lung cancer is found early in its growth, it may be possible to remove it surgically. To remove a lung cancer by surgery is the BEST CHANCE for cure that a patient with lung cancer can have. Unfortunately, there are many patients in whom the lung cancer returns just a few months after having removed it surgically. Also unfortunately, and more importantly, is the fact that when the lung cancer returns after having removed it surgically, it is then usually incurable. A key question is then: Is there something we can do in order to try to keep the lung cancer from coming back after having removed it surgically? The answer is yes!
In a recent set of articles and an editorial in the January 1, 2010 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Doctors at the Cross Cancer Institute in Alberta, Canada have shown that it helps to receive chemotherapy after the surgery is performed to remove the lung cancer. They have shown that by giving chemotherapy following surgery, the chemotherapy helps to keep the cancer from returning. The act of giving chemotherapy following surgery is what is known as ADJUVANT chemotherapy.
These doctors have shown that if a lung cancer is found early (at least stages II and III) and is able to be removed surgically, if the person then receives chemotherapy with a chemotherapy medication known as Cisplatin accompanied by another chemotherapy medicine known as Vinorelbine (also called Navelbine), the person who receives chemotherapy this way after surgery, will have a significantly lower risk of having the cancer return compared to a person only had surgery to remove the cancer and did not receive any chemotherapy following the surgery.
These doctors at the Cross Cancer Institute in Canada and in an accompanying editorial written by Dr. Jean-Yves Douillard of the Centre Rene Gauducheau for Medical Oncology in St Herblain, France, have noted that even after following these patients for over 9 years after their surgery and/or chemotherapy, the patients who received surgery AND THEN chemotherapy lived longer and had less chances for their cancers to return compared with patients who received ONLY surgery and DID NOT receive chemotherapy after their surgery.
Thus, in conclusion, these studies show that if one has surgery to remove a lung cancer that has been found early, it is important and it makes perfect sense to ask one’s doctor about the possibility of receiving chemotherapy after the surgery in order to do all that is possible to keep the cancer from coming back. All of these concepts and more are covered in very easy to understand language in the Lung Cancer audio CD available on the www.CancerInPlainEnglish.com web site.

Does treatment of Lung Cancer with Tarceva help after treatment with Iressa stops working?

RemwesMedical — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:06:06 +0000

In the treatment of lung cancer, Tarceva (also known as Erlotinib) and Iressa (also known as Gefitinib) are relatively new medications which have been a wonderfully welcome new addition to the weapons available to us in the fight against this difficult disease. A key question has been: What do we do when one of these agents stops working? Well, a group in Shizuoka, Japan, in a recent article published June 21, 2009 in the medical journal entitled Lung Cancer, has asked and has tried to answer exactly such a question.
Doctors Kaira, Naito and colleagues from the Division of Thoracic Oncology of the Shizuoka Cancer Center in Shizuoka Japan studied the results of studies performed with 106 patients who were treated with Erlotinib (Tarceva) or Gefitinib (Iressa) between November 2004 and December of 2008. What Drs. Kaira and colleagues discovered is that for patients who were initially treated with Gefitinib (Iressa) and who showed a response to treatment with Gefitinib by stopping the growth of their tumors for approximately 6 months while they were receiving Gefitinib (Iressa) treatment, then showed a good response to treatment with Erlotinib (Tarceva), if they received treatment with Erlotinib (Tarceva) after the Gefitinib (Iressa) stopped working for them.
These are exciting results. What these results indicate is that for patients who have been receiving treatment for their lung cancers with Gefitinib (Iressa) and for whom Gefitinib stops working (and this is proven by seeing on x rays and on CAT Scans that the person’s cancer has started to grow even as the treatment with Gefitinib was ongoing), it makes sense to then switch to treatment with Erlotinib (Tarceva) at that point. These researchers have shown that treatment with Erlotinib (Tarceva) after 6 months of prior treatment with Gefitinib (Iressa) (especially if the Gefitinib was working for those previous 6 months) is beneficial. Moreover, it was shown that the side effects of these medications were very mild. The only real side effects were a mild skin rash and sometimes loose stools. Both of these side effects can be readily treated.
In summary, for patients who have been receiving therapy with Gefitinib (Iressa) and who have seen their cancers remain stable and not grow for a good 6 months while on treatment with Gefitinib (Iressa), if they then are told that their cancers have now started to grow even as the treatment with Gefitinib (Iressa) is ongoing, a reasonable treatment consideration at that point, in light of the results of the study by Drs. Kaira and colleagues mentioned above, is to then move on to treatment with Erlotinib (Tarceva).
All of the above concepts and principles are covered in very easy to understand language in the Lung Cancer audio CD available on the web site www.CancerInPlainEnglish.com

Early Diagnosis of Lung Cancer

RemwesMedical — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 19:45:31 +0000

There is a new test being developed which promises to help doctors find lung cancers at an early point in the growth of the cancer. If this test indeed is as successful as it promises to be, this could be an enormous breakthrough in the care and treatment of lung cancer. The key with lung cancer is to be able to find it as early as possible in order to remove it surgically. For years, doctors have been trying to find ways to determine as early as possible if someone has lung cancer in order to be able to take that person to surgery as soon and as early as possible and thereby save his or her life.
Researchers at the David Geffen School of Medicine of the University of California at Los Angeles system have identified a group of 40 proteins that, if found in the blood of someone suspected of having lung cancer, may indeed be able to predict that he or she may or may not have lung cancer.
The researchers tested for this group of 40 proteins in patients who were found to have a “spot” on their x-ray and who were, as a result, in danger of possibly having lung cancer. Their results showed that of the patients who did indeed have lung cancer, the 40 protein group predicted that they would have lung cancer 88% of the time. Equally important, of the patients who did not have lung cancer, the group of 40 proteins predicted that they would not have lung cancer almost 80% of the time.
These are as yet very early findings and will need to be repeated and proven over and over again before this test can become available for all to use, but the key is that if indeed this test proves to be as useful as these early results suggest, this could be a great new weapon in the fight against lung cancer. If this test proves to be as effective as it now seems, we may soon be able to do a chest x ray on someone and if the chest x ray shows a “spot” in the lungs, we can then draw blood for these 40 proteins. If the test for these 40 proteins is positive, this would then give us a strong reason to try to remove the spot in the lung surgically. If the test for the 40 proteins is negative, this would give us a reason why to perhaps not do surgery at that time and just keep an eye on the spot in the lungs to see if it grows over time. These and many other concepts about lung cancer are covered in clear and easy to understand language in the Lung Cancer audio CD available on the web site www.CancerInPlainEnglish.com

Vadimezan: Promising new drug for Lung Cancer

RemwesMedical — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 10:56:58 +0000

There is a new chemotherapy agent for the treatment of Lung Cancer which appears to be very promising. This new agent, which is known as either Vadimezan or by the experimental name of ASA404, is still in the experimental / testing stages of development; however the early results of studies with this new drug are very encouraging.
Lung cancer is a frequent form of cancer in the world. Thousands of people develop and, unfortunately, will pass away from Lung Cancer yearly. Although we have made many great steps forward in the fight against this difficult disease, new forms of therapy are needed in order to better prolong life and hopefully someday be able to rid patients of this cancer altogether.
A recent breakthrough in the treatment of cancer is a medication known as Bevacizumab (also known as Avastin, made by the pharmaceutical company Genentech) which is able to block the ability of tumors to make new blood vessels to feed themselves. A key factor in the development of cancers is that as they grow, they will outgrow their blood supply unless they are able to make more blood vessels which will then bring them increased nourishing blood supplies. Well, what Bevacizumab (or Avastin) does, is to block the cell signal that cancers send out to try to make more blood vessels. In so doing, the cancer will thus starve as it grows since it will thus outgrow its blood supply.
But what about cancers that have already made their extra blood supplies? How can we kill the extra blood supplies that have already been created by the cancer? Well this is what this new medicine, known as either Vadimezan or ASA404 precisely tries to do. Rather than stop the cancer from making new blood vessels in order to increase its blood supply, what Vademizan tries to do is to stop blood supplies that have already been established by the tumor in order to feed itself.
Early studies with this new medication have shown that patients treated with this new medication (Vadimezan) plus standard chemotherapy lived longer than those who were treated only with standard chemotherapy. Also, and importantly, it has been shown that this new medicine did not make people ill. In other words, the toxicity with this new agent was not severe. There were no reported episodes of bleeding or coughing up blood or other severe side effects observed with Vademizan in the early studies performed at the University of Auckland. This is an exciting and very promising new treatment for Lung Cancer which will hopefully soon be available. These concepts and many more are discussed in easy to understand language and with abundant detail in the Lung Cancer audio CD available on the web site www.CancerInPlainEnglish.com