R-PR Reports New Data With Anticancer Agents

Rhone-Poulenc Rorer released results of further clinical trials with its anticancer agents Taxotere (docetaxel) for the treatment of lung, head, neck and breast cancer and Campto (irinotecan) for the treatment of colorectal cancer, at the 21st Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology meeting in Vienna, Austria, on November 2-5, 1996.

Progress In NSCLC In a Phase II trial of Taxotere in 27 patients with advanced-stage or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer, who had been treatment-resistant to cisplatin-based combination first-line therapy, a partial response rate was noted in 27%, or four of 15 evaluable patients, and a stabilization of the disease was seen in 20%, or three patients. A partial response rate is characterized by minimum tumor shrinkage of 50%, and disease stabilization is defined by tumor growth of not more than 25% after treatment, both being equal with regards to survival, Eric Van Cutsem of the University Hospital, Leuven, Belgium, told the conference.

In this study, the median time to relapse was 5.6 months. This is promising because it is the first treatment option for this group of patients who have failed to respond to cisplatin-based therapies, said Gilles Robinet of the Groupe Francais de Pneumologie Cancerologique, who presented the results at ESMO.