Old-style trials will miss lifesaving drugs

IT STARTED with Iressa – a cancer drug cast aside because it didn’t seem to work. Later it was resurrected when it was found to be effective in lung-cancer patients who carried a particular gene mutation. On page 8 we report that methotrexate, an ancient chemotherapy drug, might be effective when used in a genetically defined subset of patients with colorectal and endometrial cancers. Another study suggests that drugs now used to combat metastasis in patients with advanced cancer might slow the growth of all tumours, if used early. Clinical trials fail to pick up these effects because the patients…