Breast Cancer Drugs Useful in Treating Drug-Resistant Lung Tumours

London: A class of drugs used to treat certain breast cancer could help tackle lung cancers that have become resistant to targeted therapies, suggests a study done on mice. The study showed that lung tumours in mice caused by mutations in a gene called EGFR shrunk significantly when a protein called p110a was blocked by the drugs. “At the moment, patients with EGFR-mutant lung cancers are given targeted treatments that are very effective for the first few years,” said lead researcher Julian Downward, Associate Research Director of the Francis Crick Institute in the UK. “These drugs are improving, but unfortunately after a couple of years, cancer usually becomes resistant and starts to grow and spread again. The second line of treatment is currently conventional chemotherapy, which is not targeted and has substantial side-effects,” said Downward. (IANS)

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