Study shows Alimta effective for maintenance therapy

A new study presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's 44th Annual Meeting shows that lung cancer patients who receive maintenance therapy including the drug pemetrexed (Alimta) after platinum-based treatment might as much as double their survival with no new progression of the disease.

The study was carried out in multiple locations - patients with a type of lung cancer known as "non-small cell" cancer who were given pemetrexed had a mean progression-free survival of 4.3 months, while patients who did not receive the pemetrexed had a mean progression-free survival of 2.6 months. The study looked at 663 patients who were randomized, and given either pemetrexed (441 patients received the pemetrexed) or placebo (222 patients received the placebo) in 21-day cycles. The pemetrexed therapy had completed at least 4 cycles of induction platinum-based therapy.

This study shows for the first time the results of pemetrexed maintenance therapy on patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer. In the normal course of treatment, when a patient has undergone chemotherapy, extra treatments are withheld until the disease progresses further. The study attempted to look at whether or not progression of the disease was able to be delayed after cisplatin or carboplatin treatment had been completed.
In addition to chemotherapy, all the patients received supplemental vitamin B12, folic acid, and dexamethasone.

The mean age of the subjects was 61 years, with around a quarter of them being male and three quarters being female. Half of the patients showed either full or partial response with the course of induction platinum therapy, but the cancer had spread to the brain of 8% of patients before the pemetrexed treatment phase of the study started.

Dr. Ciuleanu, one of the authors of the study, said that although the results were promising, the findings were still preliminary.

"We recommend giving pemetrexed after a patient completes initial induction therapy, but before cancer progression occurs," Dr. Ciuleanu concluded."This approach affords the greatest chance of killing stray cancer cells before they have a chance to contribute to further tumor growth."

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