The study done on more than one thousand patients who have stage IV cancer, were given either platinum-based chemotherapy alone or chemotherapy plus Erbitux showed elongation of life for about five weeks. Dr. Karen Reckamp, an assistant professor of medicine at City of Hope Cancer Center in Duarte, Calif opines that for lung cancer, a small step forward is a big step. But he felt need for more research in the field as according to him four or five weeks don’t have too much meaning for lung cancer patients.

 

Dr. Shakun Malik, director of the lung cancer program at Georgetown's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center in Washington, D.C is of opinion that this will give doctors more options to treat patients with non-small cell lung cancer, for whom the prognosis is very poor. She also said that there has not been new breakthrough study in the treatment of lung cancer for long time. She showed happiness about tremendous progress in treatment of lung cancer particularly by biological therapies.

 

According to the Lung Cancer Alliance, lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States, with roughly 30 percent of all cancer deaths linked to this type of malignancy. The study was funded by Merck. Merck is also responsible for marketing of ImClone Systems Inc made ‘Erbitux’ medicines.