New lung cancer wonder drug offers cure hope for deadliest form of disease

New lung cancer wonder drug offers cure hope for deadliest form of disease. A new lung cancer drug that can cure the deadliest form of the disease is being developed by scientists.

The treatment, which appears to have no side affects, killed all traces of the 'small cell' version of the cancer in more than 50 per cent of the British trials on laboratory mice. It also blocked the cells' ability to resist standard chemotherapy treatment.

A fifth of lung cancer patients have the 'small cell' form, in which the tumours spread so quickly they can rarely be removed. Only 3 per cent of sufferers can expect to survive five years after diagnosis.

Professor Michael Seckl, head of Molecular Oncology and Lung Cancer Research at Imperial College, which led the research, said he hoped to start clinical trials with human patients as early as next year.

Breakthrough: Scientists hope to test the new drug on humans next year

'Lung cancer is the most common cancer killer in the world and over 100 people in the UK are diagnosed with the disease every day,' he said.

'Around one in five of those people will have small cell lung cancer. Although it responds to chemotherapy initially, the tumours soon become resistant to treatment and sadly nearly all people with the disease do not survive.'

The drug, currently known by the codename PD173074, wiped out 50 per cent of 'small cell' lung cancer tumours in one strain of laboratory mice. In other animals it slowed the growth of tumours and prevented them becoming resistant to chemotherapy treatment.

Professor Seckl said: 'We urgently need to develop new treatments for this disease.

'Our new research in mice suggests that it may be possible to develop the drug PD173074 into a new targeted therapy for small cell lung cancer.

'An added bonus of this drug is that it could be taken orally, which would make it less invasive than some other forms of cancer therapy.'

Each year around 39,000 people are diagnosed with lung cancer in the UK and 34,500 die from the disease.

It is the most common cause of lost lives due to cancer in the UK, accounting for nearly a quarter of deaths in men and a fifth in women, and the second most common cancer in men after prostate cancer.

Smoking is responsible for 90 per cent of the cases of lung cancer in men and more than 80 per cent of the cases in women.

Standard treatment for 'small cell' lung cancer is chemotherapy, sometimes accompanied by radiotherapy, which has harsh side effects.

Although the treatment often starts to work, the cancer usually grows back rapidly and becomes resistant.

The new research focused on blocking the activity of a growth hormone called FGF-2 which spurs on the proliferation of small cell lung tumours.

As well as adding fuel to the cancer fire, the hormone also triggers a survival mechanism in tumour cells that makes them immune to chemotherapy drugs.

The research was partly funded by the Department of Health, together with the charities Cancer Research UK and the Cancer Treatment and Research Trust.

Dr Joanna Owens, from Cancer Research UK, said: 'The early results from this study are impressive but we'll need to wait for the results of clinical trials before we'll know if the drugs could work for patients.' ( dailymail.co.uk )