Patients with advanced kidney cancer might be able to prolong survival if they received a combination of two drugs before surgery is performed. Scientists at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Centre, studied the effect of Avastin (bevacizumab) and Tarceva (eroltinib) given before a patient's tumor was removed.
Avastin was developed by Genetech and its partner Roche. It is an anti-angiogenesis drug which starves the tumor of blood supply. Tarceva is a drug that blocks a signal which tell cells to divide. The patients received Avastin intravenously once every two weeks for four weeks and took Tarceva orally every night for eight weeks before they had surgery.
When kidney cancer has metastasized to the lymph nodes or other organs the five year survival rate is not very high. Dr. Eric Jonasch, a professor of medicine at the University of Texas says "The main aim of this study was to look at the efficacy and safety of using these targeted therapies before surgery; and our results have shown that there were few side effects and that it prolonged the survival of our patients".
