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Monday, June 02, 2003In the study of the Genentech drug, half of 800 patients with colorectal cancer that had already spread to other body organs were given Avastin, in combination with aggressive chemotherapy. Their median survival time, or the time that half of these patients survived, was 20.3 months. That's almost five months, or 30 percent longer, than the 15.6 months for patients receiving chemotherapy alone. A gain of almost five months is considered an important, if incremental advance, in a common cancer where long-term survival is poor once other organs are affected. Five more months isn’t exactly a cure, but it’s at least a little more time. Time enough to see a grandchild be born, or learn to walk, or graduate from high school or college, or to mend some broken fences. Derek Lowe, meanwhile, points to some evidence that the drugs might actually increase the blood supply to tumors. Since they’re used in conjunction with traditional chemotherapy agents, they might just be improving the delivery of the old drugs. posted by Sydney on 6/02/2003 08:00:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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