Doctors are reporting success with newer drugs that control certain types of cancer better, reduce the risk it will come back and make treatment simpler and easier to bear.
Gentler drugs would be a relief to patients like Jenn Carroll, a 57-year-old human resources director from New Hartford, Connecticut, who had traditional IV chemotherapy after lung cancer surgery in 2018. “It was very strong.
I call it the ‘blammo’ method,” she said. Carroll jumped at the chance to help test a newer drug taken as a daily pill, AstraZeneca’s Tagrisso.
Rather than chemo’s imprecise cell-killing approach, Tagrisso targets a specific gene mutation. Its side effects are manageable enough that it can be used for several years to help prevent recurrence,