Nexavar Works for Liver Cancer, But It Isn’t Cheap

The study of Nexavar for liver cancer that was the talk of last year’s ASCO conference gets its closeup this week, with publication of the full results in the New England Journal of Medicine. The basic findings are the same as they were at ASCO: In patients with late-stage disease, median survival was 10.7 months for those who took the drug, compared with 7.9 months for those who took placebo. The Health Blog talked with Josep Llovet, the lead author of the study, at ASCO last year. Click on the video window at left to watch that interview. Before this study, no drug had been shown to extend life for liver cancer patients. The results were enough to win approval for Nexavar for liver cancer in late 2007 (it had already been approved for kidney cancer). As an editorial accompanying the study notes, the drug’s survival benefit... [read full story]