Barcelona hospital clinical trials find drug to slow down stomach cancer
Friday, October 4, 2013 @ 2:48 PM
A NEW drug developed and tested with the help of a Barcelona hospital has been proven to increase survival levels in advanced cases of stomach cancer.
The second-most lethal forms of cancer in the world, the fourth-most common and one which usually goes undetected until it is too late, until now the only real type of treatment has been chemotherapy, which does little more than prolong the patient's life for another eight to 10 months.
But clinical trials on 355 patients, many of whom were being treated in the oncology department of Barcelona's Vall d'Hebrón hospital, has found that the use of the antibody Ramucirumab inhibits the action of proteins associated in tumour growth in Stage III stomach cancer.
These proteins stimulate angiogenesis, a physiological process which leads to new blood vessels forming from existing ones and leads to rapid tumour growth.
Of the 355 patients tested, a total of 238 were given Ramucirumab and survived for 5.2 months longer with better tumour control than the 117 given a placebo drug, surviving for 3.2 months.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com