New Treatment For Lung Cancer Patients

Do you know someone that has been diagnosed with lung cancer? Cancer treatments have come a long way in the last thirty years or so. Every patient is different but before most lung cancer patients were getting very similar cancer treatments to each other. Now, scientists from Houston are developing lung cancer treatments that are designed specifically for the type of tumors that these patients have.

Researchers from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center conducted a study on two hundred and twenty five cancer patients all the patients had undergone chemotherapy before the study began. The researchers took biopsies of the tumors that the patients had and observed the different molecular signatures that they had. Then, the signatures corresponded to a certain drug that would treat the patient’s specific type of tumor. In all, the study was able to prevent the lung cancer from spreading in seventy one percent of the study participants. Thirty percent of those participants who did not have as successful of a match saw their cancer progression slow down and 6.5 percent of participants had any side effects at all.

There will be more clinical studies done to determine if this new treatment can help not only lung cancer patients but other cancer patients as well. The researchers hope to get phase three clinical trials done on early stage lung cancer patients soon. Hopefully, progress will be made to help lung cancer patients live longer and happier lives.