A report published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute has stated that cisplatin has better response rates than carboplatin in the treatment of advanced non-small cell lung cancer.

The two main types of lung cancer, accounting for over 90 percent of all lung cancers, are non-small cell and small cell cancer. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for most of that 90 percent.

Advanced NSCLC means that the patient's cancer has spread to other organs or areas of the body. There has been research done to evaluate which drug is better for NSCLC -- cisplatin or carboplatin. Nine clinical trials were analyzed to see what regime is a better treatment option.

I love to write about new studies combining drugs to improve survival of any kind of cancer. When I read these articles I immediately want to write about them. The reason is because having had breast cancer, I'm always afraid of a recurrence. Knowing that new treatment combinations are working, keeps my anxiety at bay.

An article recently published in the Annals of Oncology says that treatment consisting of Doxil and carboplatin may improve survival in patients with relapsed ovarian cancer.

Researchers in France conducted a clinical trial to evaluate Doxil plus carboplatin in the treatment of patients with advanced ovarian cancer that had relapsed following prior platinum and taxane based regimens.

Anticancer responses occurred in 63 percent of patients. Complete disappearances of cancer occurred in 38 percent of patients. The researchers conclude that the combination of Doxil/carboplatin appears highly effective for women with advanced ovarian cancer.

In a Phase III trial involving 878 lung cancer patients, the drug bevacizumab, known as Avastin, increased the overall survival rate to 35 percent when combined with the chemotherapy drugs paclitaxel and carboplatin. Patients who were given paclitaxel and carboplatin without Avastin had a 15 percent chance of responding to treatment.

Two months ago, the Food and Drug Administration approved Avastin as a first-line treatment for patients with inoperable, locally advanced, recurrent or metastatic non-squamous, non-small cell lung cancer. Avastin works by stopping the formation of blood vessels that feed oxygen and nutrients needed for tumor growth. Because the drug is a targeted therapy, in that it leaves healthy tissue alone while going after cancer cells, some of the traditional side-effects from conventional chemotherapy, such as hair loss, nausea, or vomiting, are avoided.

According to Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center at UT Southwestern Chief of Hematology/Oncology's Dr. Joan Schiller, "Twenty years ago, we thought no treatment could help patients with advanced lung cancer. Ten years ago, we found that chemotherapy could improve survival of these patients. Now, we are finding out that this very unique drug called Avastin can also help improve survival even more. Avastin is the first of this very exciting family of drugs to be approved for lung cancer, and there are several other drugs of this type under development which may prove to work even better."

The Phase III clinical trial known as OVATURE has gotten underway at The Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. This will be one of sixty hospitals that will participate in this ovarian cancer study to confirm the effectiveness of phenoxodiol in resensitizing patients to chemotherapy.

The total number of patients to be treated in this study will be 470, half will be treated with phenoxodiol and carboplatin and the other half a placebo and carboplatin. Thirty of the hospitals will be in the United States, twenty five in Europe and five in Australia. A Phase II study already conducted showed that phenoxodiol did have a chemosensitizing effect on ovarian cancer patients who's prior chemotherapy treatments failed.

Phenoxodiol is an investigational drug and at this time is not commercially available.

Eli Lilly and Company has launched a major clinical trial evaluating ALIMTA (pemetrexed for injection) in extensive stage small cell lung cancer (SCLC), a devastating and rapidly spreading form of lung cancer. SCLC is sometimes called oat cell cancer because small cell lung cancer cells resemble oat grains. Patients with SCLC are staged according to a two-stage system, being diagnosed as having either limited stage disease or extensive stage disease. About 65 to 70 percent of patients with SCLC are diagnosed with extensive stage disease and the current two year survival rate is less than 10 percent.

The GALES trial, Global Analysis of Pemetexed in SCLC Extensive Stage, is a Phase III trial that will enroll 1,820 patients with extensive stage disease. The study's primary objective is to compare the overall survival after treatment with pemetrexed plus carboplatin verses the current standard treatment of etoposide plus carboplatin.

More details on the study design and information on global recruitment sites may be found at www.clinicaltrials.gov and www.lillytrials.com or by calling 1-877-CTLILLY.

A clinical trial was conducted to see if the addition of Gemzar (gemcitabine) to Paraplatin (carboplatin) would improve progression free survival in women with ovarian cancer who had been treated and have since had a recurrence of their disease.

The trial included 356 patients who have received prior chemotherapy. The women in study had a cancer recurrence at least six months following initial chemotherapy. They separated the women into two groups. One group was treated with Gemzar and carbolplatin, the other group of patients only received carboplatin.

A complete disappearance of detectable cancer occurred in over 14 percent of the patients who were treated with Gemzar and carboplatin, compared with only a little over 6 percent for those treated with just carboplatin.

The researches from Europe, Canada, and the United States agree that the results indicate the superiority of the addition of Gemzar to carboplatin for the treatment of advanced ovarian cancer that has recurred.

Reuters has just issued an update on Eli Lilly's announcement that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, FDA, approved the use of Gemzar in the treatment of recurrent ovarian cancer, questioning why the company omitted information that the FDA approval goes against the advice of an FDA advisory panel earlier this year that strongly recommended against approval of the drug for this use.

The FDA approved use of Gemzar in combination with carboplatin, in chemotherapy treatment for women with advanced ovarian cancer that has relapsed at least six months after initial therapy. The reason the FDA advisory panel voted against the approval of the use of Gemzar in combination with carboplatin, were due to questions raised about Lilly's trial data and the way the company conducted the 356-person clinical study. The panel was concerned that patients in the late-stage clinical trial failed to survive longer than those taking carboplatin alone. The FDA went ahead and approved it after the drug company provided additional information.

What needs to be made clear is that Gemzar does not seem to prolong the life of women with recurrent ovarian cancer, and the drug company is only stating that Gemzar provides longer progression-free survival than patients taking carboplatin alone. Progression-free survival measures the time before the disease recurs or worsens.

According to Reuters, when a spokesperson for Lilly was asked why they did not mention in its release that the FDA advisory panel had voted against the approval of Gemzar, or the drug's failure to prolong life, he said, "I'm not sure that needed to be the focus."