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The drug was studied in a small group of patients with non-small-cell lung cancer. This is the most common type of lung cancer, accounting for about 80% of the over 160,000 lung cancer cases diagnosed each year in the US.
Results of a pilot study of the drug were presented recently at the 10th International Congress on Anticancer Treatment in Paris, France. Dr. Richard Momparler and colleagues, of the Hospital Center, University of Montreal, examined the safety and administration schedule of decitabine in 15 patients diagnosed with advanced (stage IV) non-small-cell lung cancer.
"Decitabine has a unique mechanism of action," Momparler explained in a statement. The drug is thought to act by reactivating tumor suppressor genes in cancer cells. These genes are often turned off in cancer cells, and reactivating them returns cancer cells to their normal cell type.
Patients in the study had not received chemotherapy before being administered a course of intravenous infusions of decitabine. Of the 6 patients who received two or more cycles of decitabine, 3 patients had a survival time greater than 16 months, "which is longer than what would be expected in patients treated with the current chemotherapeutic standard-of-care," according to a statement issued by SuperGen, Inc., the San Ramon, California-based company that is developing decitabine.
Momparler noted that patients in the study probably did not receive the optimum dosage, and might respond better with higher dosages of decitabine.
"This pilot study was to evaluate different dosage schedules," Momparler explained. He added, "The results lead me to believe that this drug could become a promising development in the fight against lung cancer, and possibly other solid tumors. Further clinical investigation is warranted."
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