Vadimezan: Promising new drug for Lung Cancer

RemwesMedical — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 10:56:58 +0000

There is a new chemotherapy agent for the treatment of Lung Cancer which appears to be very promising. This new agent, which is known as either Vadimezan or by the experimental name of ASA404, is still in the experimental / testing stages of development; however the early results of studies with this new drug are very encouraging.
Lung cancer is a frequent form of cancer in the world. Thousands of people develop and, unfortunately, will pass away from Lung Cancer yearly. Although we have made many great steps forward in the fight against this difficult disease, new forms of therapy are needed in order to better prolong life and hopefully someday be able to rid patients of this cancer altogether.
A recent breakthrough in the treatment of cancer is a medication known as Bevacizumab (also known as Avastin, made by the pharmaceutical company Genentech) which is able to block the ability of tumors to make new blood vessels to feed themselves. A key factor in the development of cancers is that as they grow, they will outgrow their blood supply unless they are able to make more blood vessels which will then bring them increased nourishing blood supplies. Well, what Bevacizumab (or Avastin) does, is to block the cell signal that cancers send out to try to make more blood vessels. In so doing, the cancer will thus starve as it grows since it will thus outgrow its blood supply.
But what about cancers that have already made their extra blood supplies? How can we kill the extra blood supplies that have already been created by the cancer? Well this is what this new medicine, known as either Vadimezan or ASA404 precisely tries to do. Rather than stop the cancer from making new blood vessels in order to increase its blood supply, what Vademizan tries to do is to stop blood supplies that have already been established by the tumor in order to feed itself.
Early studies with this new medication have shown that patients treated with this new medication (Vadimezan) plus standard chemotherapy lived longer than those who were treated only with standard chemotherapy. Also, and importantly, it has been shown that this new medicine did not make people ill. In other words, the toxicity with this new agent was not severe. There were no reported episodes of bleeding or coughing up blood or other severe side effects observed with Vademizan in the early studies performed at the University of Auckland. This is an exciting and very promising new treatment for Lung Cancer which will hopefully soon be available. These concepts and many more are discussed in easy to understand language and with abundant detail in the Lung Cancer audio CD available on the web site www.CancerInPlainEnglish.com

New Lung Cancer Treatments – Cancer In Plain English – Cancer Information

Vadimezan: Promising new drug for Lung Cancer