One in six patients with oesophageal cancer have EGFR duplication and, as with some lung cancers, gefitinib seems to be able to extend survival by an average 6 months according to clinical trial research presented at the NCRI cancer Conference on November 5th 2014.
This is the first treatment shown to work in patients with an advanced state of the disease.
Of the 48 patients in the trial with extra EGFR copies, 13 per cent who took the drug survived for at least a year. However, it had no effect on those without the extra copies.