The drug he needs is Tarceva, widely used here in the US.
That’s really sad.
I wish them the best.
thanks for posting this, this will be added to:
http://www.neoperspectives.com/britishhealthcare.htm
This is what the liberals have in store for us.
That’s a really smart six-year-old.
This is how liberals want our health care to be.
Not theirs, of course, just ours.
Where do I send a cheque?
It's not a life saving drug at all. It prolonged survival in 9% of the patients having late stage, non-small cell lung cancer(after std chemo failed) by 2 months, and has an ~12% response rate in late stage pancreatic cancer.
Erlotinib in previously treated non-small-cell lung cancer.
Shepherd FA, Rodrigues Pereira J, Ciuleanu T, Tan EH, Hirsh V, Thongprasert S, Campos D, Maoleekoonpiroj S, Smylie M, Martins R, van Kooten M, Dediu M, Findlay B, Tu D, Johnston D, Bezjak A, Clark G, Santabárbara P, Seymour L; National Cancer Institute of Canada Clinical Trials Group.
Department of Medical Oncology, University Health Network, Princess Margaret Hospital Site, University of Toronto, Canada.
BACKGROUND: We conducted a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial to determine whether the epidermal growth factor receptor inhibitor erlotinib prolongs survival in non-small-cell lung cancer after the failure of first-line or second-line chemotherapy. METHODS: Patients with stage IIIB or IV non-small-cell lung cancer, with performance status from 0 to 3, were eligible if they had received one or two prior chemotherapy regimens. The patients were stratified according to center, performance status, response to prior chemotherapy, number of prior regimens, and prior platinum-based therapy and were randomly assigned in a 2:1 ratio to receive oral erlotinib, at a dose of 150 mg daily, or placebo. RESULTS: The median age of the 731 patients who underwent randomization was 61.4 years; 49 percent had received two prior chemotherapy regimens, and 93 percent had received platinum-based chemotherapy. The response rate was 8.9 percent in the erlotinib group and less than 1 percent in the placebo group (P<0.001); the median duration of the response was 7.9 months and 3.7 months, respectively. Progression-free survival was 2.2 months and 1.8 months, respectively (hazard ratio, 0.61, adjusted for stratification categories; P<0.001). Overall survival was 6.7 months and 4.7 months, respectively (hazard ratio, 0.70; P<0.001), in favor of erlotinib. Five percent of patients discontinued erlotinib because of toxic effects. CONCLUSIONS: Erlotinib can prolong survival in patients with non-small-cell lung cancer after first-line or second-line chemotherapy. Copyright 2005 Massachusetts Medical Society.
PMID: 16014882 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
btt
Sorry for my post. I did a search and it didn’t reveal anything. Gene