Taipei, March 15 (CNA) Clinical test results in Taiwan of an anti-lung cancer drug have shown a more curative effect on East Asians -- especially female patients -- than Westerners, two doctors said at a press conference Wednesday.
A clinical trial of Gefitinib -- an oral drug marketed as Iressa -- was performed in Taiwan on 36 Taiwanese lung cancer patients, 20 male and 16 female. The results showed patients who took Gefitinib averaged a one-year survival rate of 45.1 percent, with 33 percent of the patients experiencing a decrease in tumor size.
Compared to the average survival time of 9 to 12 months among Taiwanese lung cancer patients, the survival time of those who took Gefitnib saw a 30 percent increase, up to 20.1 months.
Gefitinib has demonstrated consistently good response rates in studies of Asian patients -- between 20 to 30 percent in most Asian countries. The rates in Western countries are usually less than 10 percent, said Chen Yuh-min, a doctor at Taipei Veterans General Hospital.
"Cancer is always the top cause of death in Taiwan. And lung cancer is the most common cancer among female patients," said Perng Reury-perng, President of the Taiwan Lung Cancer Society. Perng said the test results are obviously good news for Taiwanese female patients.
Gefitinib is an anti-cancer drug that inhibits an enzyme present in lung cancer cells, as well as other cancers and normal tissues, and appears to be important to the growth of cancer cells. It has been used as a single agent for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), which has progressed after, or failed to respond, to two other types of chemotherapy.