The drug trial held as a research into lung cancer treatment using "Erlotinib" and "Tarceva" on patients in the advanced stages of lung cancer depict positive results in relation to the drugs applied. Six hundred and seventy men and women who took part in the trial were around or over the age of 77 and were diagnosed prior to the trial to be in the advanced stages of lung cancer. For these specific patients selected for the trial, chemotherapy was not the answer.
Erlotinib (the drug used for the trials) works as a defense against the multiplication of cancerous cells. The results yield the fact that a larger proportion of women had shown remarkable improvement as compared to the men on the same drug. The doctors conducting the trial are unsure of the reasons of the drug's specific effect on women, but gladly recommend the drug for use on women who are in the late stages of lung cancer and are too weak for chemo therapy.
Lung Cancer
Lung cancer is a disease of the lungs in which uncontrolled cell growth takes place in the lungs and in some severe cases may infiltrate body tissues other than the lungs. The disease is subdivided into "small cell lung carcinoma" and "non-small cell lung carcinoma" due to the difference of the treatments involved. The condition is manageable if diagnosed at an earlier stage and before the occurrence of severe symptoms.
Can Smoking Cause Lung Cancer?
The most recognized and rational cause of lung caner has been attributed to cigarettes and smoking and is globally accepted as the single "major" cause of lung cancer. This has resulted in a series of global actions to put an end to smoking with the government bodies completely focused on eliminating social smoking and smoking at all for that matter.
The slow and torturous growth of cancerous cells and tumors in the lungs is calculated to claim the lives of approximately (and increasing) 1.5 million people annually. These tumors and cancerous cells in the lungs not only cause difficulty in daily life but the patient also creates a psychological and physiological dependency of smoking thus ignoring the developing symptoms, which are not easily recognizable by the general public and hence the diagnosis is almost always too late resulting in nothing but a death sentence and a statement in relation to the time the patient has got before the cancer in his/her lungs exceeds a certain limit and claims another life.
Source:
Cancer.gov, "Lung Cancer" (Accessed June 9, 2010)
Junaid Ali - Junaid Ali got his start in the writing business as an academic writer in the freelance commerce. After realizing that the field was too ...
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