The Cochran Firm Legal Blog

According a recent study, putting new drugs together in a one-two combo designed to precisely target cancers actually hurts patients and makes cancers grow, not shrink. Pharmaceutical companies have long talked about the benefits of new "targeted" drug treatments for cancer, so when Genentech, Inc's Avastin (Bevacizumab) was approved in 2004, it quickly became part of the standard treatment for colorectal cancer. And when Eli Lily's Erbitux (Cetuximab) was approved for colorectal cancer, it was immediately thought that the two drugs (that attack cancer differently), might work together to dramatically decrease the size of advanced colorectal tumors. A small initial study confirmed this might be the case.

But now two larger, randomized studies show that the opposite is true. According to the studies, people taking both drugs saw their cancers expand more quickly and their quality of life decreased, but the overall survival rate was about the same.

These studies show the dangers of a particular kind of medical malpractice. Some doctors are "early adopters" of drugs, and are quick to use them "off-label." There is no good reason for this type of medication error, which may be due to some doctors' eagerness to help patients with new treatments, their curiosity to find out what happens with new drugs, behind-the-scenes promotions by drug companies, or even a doctor's financial investment in drugs.

Colorectal cancer is the second-leading killer cancer in the United States, largely due to failure to diagnose until it's too late to treat. Sometimes this is due to patients not receiving regular colonoscopies, but in other cases it is due to doctors' inability to identify these cancers despite advanced diagnostic tools.

If your cancer was worsened by a doctor's delayed diagnosis or by a prescription of an untested drug combination, you may have suffered a shortened life and a dramatic diminishment of the quality of what you have left. You deserve compensation for your injuries. Schedule a medical malpractice consultation with the civil injury lawyers at The Cochran Firm today.