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“We’ve pushed the limit as far as we can with chemotherapy,” says Dr. Crawford, who serves as vice chair of the respira-tory cancer committee for the Cancer and Leukemia Group B, the association conducting the studies. “We’re trying to maintain or enhance the efect of the chemo with a targeted therapy.” Sunitinib only targets individual cells, unlike the more toxic chemotherapy drugs that attack both healthy and cancerous cells. Te side efects from the medication are milder and better-tolerated by patients.

With chemotherapy alone, the tumor typically will begin to grow again after just two to four months. Adding the targeted therapy could extend remission by several more months.

“Because there are no good screen-ing methods, most patients present with advanced lung cancer,” Dr. Crawford says. “Before we had chemotherapy,

Sunitinib clinical trial could extend life for lung cancer patients

As an affiliate of Duke Medicine, Beaufort Memorial has qualifed to join two national clinical trials studying a targeted cancer therapy that could extend the lives of patients with advanced lung cancer.

Jefrey Crawford, MD, chief of medical oncology and principal investigator for clinical trials at Duke, recently met with BMH physicians and staf members to discuss the early fndings of the stud-ies, which are sponsored by the National Cancer Institute.

Sunitinib, the anti-cancer agent, is an oral medication given to patients with ad-vanced lung cancer after four to six cycles of standard chemotherapy treatments in order to inhibit the vascular endothelial growth factors that stimulate the tumors. It has been used on other types of cancer with good results, but has not been tested on lung cancer.