Interesting Article about drug developments for ALK and EGFR

[Bow-19]

fool.com/investing/2018/04/...

[Neil-SueD]

Well spotted Bow-19. It was interesting to note the comment (on a further link via the Wikipedia page on Dacomitinib) that whilst Pfizer's Dacomitinib appears to be effective for longer than Astra-Zeneca's Gefitinib, the side-effects are similar (no surprise there) but stronger. I've just had a 2 week break from Gefitinib (back on it yesterday) after 19 months on it to see what relief there may be from side-effects. Too long a story for here! Anyway, I'm glad such drugs are available.

A specialist nurse at my hospital recently told me that the advent of such drugs had created a new class of lung cancer "survivor"/sufferer with their own set of issues that hadn't previously existed, I suppose because we'd have been dead by now in the past!

Neil

[Bow-19 in reply to Neil-SueD]

Interesting. I am ALK positive and my lung cancer nurse had said the same. Wishing you all the best x

[JanetteR57]

Good article. As both respondents have said, there have been a wave of treatments in recent years aiming to do similar things and conferences often publish the latest news on trial results. What's interesting is the different outcome in those patients who hadn't had previous therapies. It's good that there are now people living for several years on such treatments allowing other treatments to be developed as more is learnt about the conditions, patients responses and genomics.

The nurse's comment is fair - and this is where patients on such treatments need to log/record their side effects and ensure that an accurate picture of them is built up as this is not only a holy grail for the drug companies, patients deserve quality of life and some of the side effects can be awful. The breast cancer community has successfully lobbied and raised research funds to investigate the long terms of living with cancer treatments and it's heartening that more lung cancer patients are surviving longer. However we must ensure that experiences are captured in the 'round' and that just surviving longer isn't the only trial outcome - capturing true patient reported outcomes about quality of life and understanding the longer term effects of them will be key to improving future treatments for lung cancer.

[Bow-19]

I agree a record / log of side effects needs to be kept as quality of life is very important . Also agree that future treatment needs to keep improving

[Mariabanana]

Thanks Bow. Useful to know.