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A study regarding the effectiveness of a kidney cancer drug against lung cancer was just one of many findings revealed at the June annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Atlanta. Kidney cancer patients heard some good news as well.

In a phase 3 clinical trial of an investigational drug called lapatinib, cancer growth slowed and survival improved in some patients with advanced kidney cancer. Specifically, the growth of renal cell carcinoma decelerated, thanks to the drug.

Other study findings presented in Atlanta included:

· A targeted drug called Apo2L. This novel therapy uses recombinant, or genetically engineered, human protein to prompt death in cancer cells while sparing most normal, healthy cells. The therapy targets patients with advanced cancer.

· A therapy to shrink tumors in some patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and hormone-refractory prostate cancer that recurs after conventional chemotherapy. This new anticancer agent, called YM155, was well tolerated. YM155 is the first agent designed to inhibit a protein that suppresses apoptosis, or the programmed death of a cell.

· The use of a biomarker to predict whether patients with advanced ovarian cancer will respond to a targeted therapy called pertuzumab. The drug pertuzumab is the first in a class of new agents that blocks the ability of a cancer protein to pair with another. Thus, tumor growth is inhibited.

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