Dr Siow-Ming Lee

Dr Lee

Department of Oncology
University College London Hospitals
London

Testing treatments for lung cancer

Dr Siow-Ming Lee and his team are testing new treatments for lung cancer. Currently, more than 33,000 people die from lung cancer every year in the UK and better treatments are urgently needed. Dr Lee is currently recruiting patients for two clinical trials called TOPICAL and TACTIC.

TOPICAL is a trial testing whether a new drug called (erlotinib) can improve survival for people with the most common form of lung cancer called 'non-small cell lung cancer' (NSCLC). Tarceva specifically targets a protein on the surface of lung cancer cells called the EGFR.

In the TACTIC trial, the researchers are testing whether Tarceva used in combination with radiotherapy can improve the outcome for people with NSCLC that has spread to the brain. This occurs in up to 40 per cent of patients with NSCLC so the results of this trial could help many more people beat lung cancer in the future.

Cancer Research UK also funded Dr Lee to carry out a trial investigating the benefits of adding thalidomide to standard chemotherapy for the treatment of another form of the disease called 'small cell lung cancer'. Thalidomide can stop the growth of blood vessels into tumours starving them of essential nutrients and oxygen.

Early results from this study indicate that thalidomide improves patient survival. A second larger trial has now completed recruitment and the data is being analysed to find out if the benefits of thalidomide can be confirmed in larger groups of people.

Dr Lee hopes to improve the survival and quality of life for people with lung cancer - a disease that kills approximately 1 in 4 cancer patients worldwide every year.

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