Cancer drug cocktail could save thousands of lives

John von Radowitz

If widely used, the treatment could save thousands of lives.

Lung cancer kills more than 1,500 Irish people a year, and accounts for one in five of all cancer deaths.

The new treatment makes use of two existing cancer drugs, cisplatin and etoposide, alongside radiation therapy. It then adds a new drug, docetaxel marketed as Taxotere to stop the cancer re-occurring.

Scientists in the United States studied 83 patients with relatively advanced lung cancers. They found half survived longer than two years, and 29% lived beyond five years under the new treatment regimen.

In most cases, cancer patients who survive more than five years after diagnosis are regarded as "cured".

Professor David Gandara, from the University of California, who led the research, said: "These survival results exceed those of all other treatment approaches in this group of patients.