Taking a combination form of hormone replacement therapy, which includes both estrogen and progestin, increases a woman’s risk for dying from lung cancer, a new study has found.
The finding stems from an analysis of data from the Women’s Health Initiative trial on 16,608 postmenopausal women, aged 50 to 79, in the United States who had been randomly assigned to take either a once-daily tablet of 0.625 milligrams conjugated equine estrogen plus 2.5 mg medroxyprogesterone acetate or a placebo.
After eight years, 73 women taking the hormone therapy and 40 women in the placebo group had died of lung cancer. That meant, according to the researchers, that women who took the drug were 71 percent more likely to die from the disease. [click to continue…]
Maintenance therapy with the drug pemetrexed improves the survival of people with non-small-cell lung cancer whose disease has not progressed after chemotherapy, a new study has found.
Nearly 90 percent of all people who die from lung cancer have non-small-cell tumors. At the time the cancer is discovered, it’s considered advanced about 40 percent of the time, according to background information in a news release from The Lancet, which is publishing the study. Chemotherapy reduces the tumors in just 40 percent of advanced cases, it said.
The phase 3 study included 663 people in 20 countries who had an advanced stage of the cancer but no disease progression after four cycles of platinum-based chemotherapy. They were randomly selected to be given pemetrexed or a placebo in 21-day cycles. [click to continue…]
Treatments offered to people with lung cancer vary based on the type and stage of lung cancer and other circumstances such as age, other medical problems, and personal eferences of the individual person. The treatment plan that you will be offered will be developed to meet your personal requirements.
Treating Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer There are three primary forms of treatment for non-small cell lung cancer.
Surgery
Radiation Therapy
Chemotherapy
The type of treatment or combination of treatments used depends on the type and stage of cancer. Non-small cell lung cancer differs from person to person. There is no easy way to pre-determine how an individual patient will respond to any specific treatment or bination of treatments. While the stage of a patient’s cancer [click to continue…]