a small pill and big hopes for curing lung cancer

The treatment has been tested on patients with the most common form of lung cancer, says “non-small cell”. 680 patients were selected. Half took the molecule, Osimertinib, the other a placebo. After five years, 88% of the treated patients were still alive, compared to 78% for the others. “It’s an oral drug that will enter the tumor cells. We take it once a day, and when it enters the cells, (…) it will block the proliferation of the cell, and sometimes cause it to die “explains Benjamin Besse, director of clinical research at the Institut Gustave Roussy.

A personalized treatment

The treatment is aimed at patients who have been operated on, and in whom the tumor has certain genetic mutations. It is a targeted therapy. Already used in breast cancer, it is full of promise. “It shows that for each cancer, we are moving towards personalized treatment. We have it with targeted therapies, we will have it tomorrow perhaps with therapeutic vaccines”, analyzes Damien Mascret, doctor and journalist for France Télévisions. In France, the new treatment should concern a few hundred patients, out of the 46,000 diagnosed each year with lung cancer.