Christie starts one of world’s biggest trials for small cell lung cancer

Doctors at the Christie Hospital are about to start one of the world’s biggest clinical trials of radiotherapy for small cell lung cancer, combining drugs and radiation to boost the survival of small cell lung cancer patients.

At the moment in the UK, most small cell lung cancer patients are given a course of chemotherapy followed by a course of radiotherapy. But Christie doctors believe that combining the two treatments so they are given at the same time could increase survival. Chemotherapy is the use of drugs to treat cancer, and radiotherapy is the use of radiation aimed at cancerous tumours.

The Christie will be coordinating the trial which will involve not only Christie patients, but patients from at least 60 cancer hospitals from all over the world including France, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada and the USA

read more at http://www.christie.nhs.uk/press/2008/190208.aspx