Temodar and radiation extends survival

NEW YORK, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Four times as many brain cancer patients who received Schering-Plough Corp (SGP.N: Quote, Profile, Research) drug Temodar and radiation were still alive four years after being diagnosed than those who received radiation alone, researchers said on Monday.
The data come from continued observation of patients from a Phase III study whose results appeared in 2005. That 573- patient study showed twice as many patients treated with Temodar and radiation survived two years after diagnosis as those receiving only radiation.
The patients were treated for a rapidly fatal form of brain cancer called glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), which accounts for up to 25 percent of all primary brain tumors.
The follow-up analysis described on Monday showed that 12 percent of those receiving Temodar during and after radiation lived for four years, versus three percent of those receiving radiation alone.
Researchers also noted that patients who survived for four years after being diagnosed were primarily younger than 50 and in otherwise good health, meaning no prior major medical condition.
About 28 percent of such otherwise healthy and relatively young patients treated with Temodar and radiation lived for four years, compared with 7 percent of those who received only radiation.
"Since GBM patients can now live longer, oncologists are monitoring them more closely and a substantial proportion of these patients are being actively treated when their cancer returns, through a combination of treatment options," said Rene-Olivier Mirimanoff, lead author of the study and a radiation oncologist at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The four-year follow-up data were presented in Los Angeles at a meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology.

Source: Reuter.com