Monday, October 1, 2012

Positive news for those who has a mutation?

Positive news from here:

In a trial of 347 previously treated patients whose non- small lung cancer showed mutations in the gene known as ALK, those given Pfizer’s Xalkori experienced progression-free survival to 7.7 months, compared with 3 months for patients on the other treatments, according to results presented today at the European Society for Medical Oncology in Vienna.

BUT!!!

While the ALK mutation is present in just five percent of non-small cell lung cancers, the most common form of the malignancy, “it’s a large absolute number,” Shaw said in the interview. Unlike other lung cancer patients, who are in their mid-60s or 70s, ALK-positive patients are about 50 years old on average and don’t have a history of smoking, she said.

I have already asked: what about the rest 95% who do not have the mutation?

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