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ATLANTA, May 25 (Reuters Health) -- When the initial treatment for non-small cell carcinoma -- a difficult-to-treat cancer that makes up a third of lung cancers -- is a failure, the drug docetaxel can help prolong survival, according to a Texas researcher.
``Treatment options for patients who fail first-line treatment are very limited,'' said Dr. Frank V. Fossella, the medical director of Thoracic Medical Oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
``Non-small cell lung cancer is not a very responsive cancer in the first place,'' he noted in an interview with Reuters Health.
In a study of 373 such patients, the one-year survival in those treated with docetaxel was 32% compared with 19% in those treated with vinorelbine or ifosfamide, Fossella reported at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting here.
Fossella said that ``given the large numbers of patients, this was a modest but significant improvement'' in survival.
``This treatment is not curative by any means,'' Fossella pointed out. ``Our goal is to prolong survival without making patients sicker.'' He added that patients in this study were relatively healthy. ``This treatment is probably not suitable for very sick patients.''
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