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An American pharmaceutical firm has said using its experimental cancer treatment alongside chemotherapy improved progression-free-survival in lung cancer patients compared to just using chemotherapy.
Peregrine Pharmaceuticals said a mid-stage trial is testing the overall response rate to a tailor-made protein called bavituximab when it is combined with chemotherapy in patients with non-small cell lung cancer.
The median progression-free-survival rate of patients receiving bavituximab and chemotherapy was 6.5 months. The survival rate of those patients only receiving chemotherapy was 4.2 to 4.5 months. The figures were based on a 21-patient cohort of the trial.
The company also said the enrolment of the 49 patients planned for the study had been completed. Around 1.2 million people a year die of lung cancer, which is the top cause of cancer death in the world.
Copyright Press Association 2009
