Thalidomide Extends Survival for Cancer Patients

ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- New research shows adding thalidomide to the standard treatment for multiple myeloma significantly improves survival in elderly patients.

Researchers from France studied 447 patients who had not yet received treatment for multiple myeloma -- a cancer of the plasma cell. Patients received either the standard treatment of prednisone and melphalan alone, prednisone, melphalan and thalidomide or reduced-intensity stem cell transplantation using melphalan.

After about 51 months, the median overall survival rates were 33.2 months for the melphalan and prednisone group, 51.6 months for the melphalan, prednisone and thalidomide group and 38.3 months for patients who received the low-dose stem cell treatment. Patients who received thalidomide along with the standard treatment were 41-percent less likely to die than the patients who received the standard treatment alone. They were 31-percent less likely to die than those who received the stem cell treatment.

Researchers say treating multiple myeloma with prednisone and melphalan has been the most widely accepted treatment choice for elderly patients unable to tolerate high-dose therapy since the 1960s.

Thalidomide is an oral drug originally developed as a treatment for insomnia and morning sickness in the 1950s. It was banned in the early 60s after researchers discovered it caused major birth defects in babies whose mothers took the drug. According to the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, thalidomide affects the immune system and is believed to inhibit the growth and survival of myeloma cells as well as inhibit the growth of new blood vessels.

Authors of the study write, “The results of our trial provide strong evidence to indicate that the use of thalidomide in combination with melphalan and prednisone should, at present, be the reference treatment for previously untreated elderly patients with multiple myeloma.”

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SOURCE: The Lancet, 2007;370:1209-1218

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