Sutent -- new drug for rare type of intestinal cancer

[Guest guest]

Delaying progression of intestinal cancer

Sat 05 Nov 2005 01:58 PM CST

WASHINGTON (myDNA News)

A new drug, Sutent, has been shown to dramatically delay the

progression of a rare type of intestinal cancer in patients whose

tumors have outsmarted other drugs.

Conventional chemotherapy drugs kill cancer cells and often damages

healthy tissue.

Sutent belongs to a new class of cancer drugs that target multiple

tumor activities at once. It seems to shrink tumors by blocking

their blood flow and impeding the signals that tell the cancer cells

to grow and spread.

It was tested on gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) patients for

whom other drugs did not work.

In the study, Sutent delayed the time to progression of the tumor by

more than 20 weeks, but it is still too early to tell if the

treatment is saving lives.

Research on Sutent was presented this week at the European Cancer

Conference in Paris.

http://www.mydna.com/health/colorectal_cancer/news/news_20051104_sute

nt.html