Pill for lung cancer

The pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca launched Monday in the Netherlands, a pill that some form of lung cancer can be suppressed. It is a form of the disease that annually affects about a thousand Dutch and a test to prove it is.

These patients need for new treatment to the hospital for chemotherapy, but can swallow a pill at home. U.S. researchers recently published the new treatment in the authoritative medical journal New England Journal of Medicine. Netherlands is one of the first European countries to the new drug will be reimbursed, says AstraZeneca Sunday.

'It is important that cancer patients immediately after diagnosis of this mutation to be tested''says pulmonologist Egbert Smit of the University Medical Center. He says it is about 15 percent of all patients with lung cancer. ,, Patients with this form of lung cancer have a favorable prognosis and benefit from a treatment other than chemotherapy.''