Erbitux Plus Chemo Promises Prolonged Life in Lung Cancer Patients: Study

ImClone Systems Inc's biologic drug, Erbitux when administered along with standard chemotherapy to patients ailing from advanced non-small cell lung cancerdefine, prolonged the patients’ survival by nearly five weeks than chemotherapy alone, results of the company’s long awaited clinical trial revealed.

Also, the prolonged survival was tracked across all histological subtypes, patient performance, status, age groups, previous smoking history and gender, researchers say.

ERBITUX is a monoclonal antibody designed to inhibit the function of a protein called epidermal growth factor that is known to play a vital role in the cancerdefine cell growth. As it blocks the blood supply to the tumor it impairs cell growth and proliferation.

The findings were based on a study of about 1,100 patients, all in stage IV of lung cancer. One segment of the patients were treated a combo of Erbitux and chemotherapy, while the other received only chemotherapy.

While the overall survival rate for patients on the combination therapy was 11.3 months, the patients of the group receiving just chemotherapy survived for only 10.1 months, the results of the trial revealed.

Also, more than one in three patients, i.e. 36.3 percent responded to the combination therapy, compared with 29.2 percent who improved after getting only chemotherapy, the study found.

"Patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer have limited treatment options and life expectancy is short. The survival increase shown in this study is an important step for these patients," lead researcher of the study Robert Pirker, associate professor of medicine at the Medical University of Vienna in Austria said.

The results of the trail sponsored by ImClone’s European Marketing partner Merck KGaA were announced at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago.

Already approved for treating colondefine tumors and head and neck malignancies, the latest results could make Erbitux a preferred therapy for half of non-small cell lung cancer patients who don’t respond adequately to Genentech Inc.'s Avastin.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death in men and women, with more than 161,000 deaths expected to occur in 2008 – account to nearly 29 percent of all cancer deaths. Topping it further, only 30 percent of patients in the most advanced forms of the disease, such as those who participated in the study, typically live for one year after the diagnosis. The five year survival rate is 2 percent or less.