Drug study shows more wasn’t better

NEW YORK (AP) — Doctors thought that combining two newer drugs that more precisely attack cancer would help people with advanced colon cancer, the nation’s second-leading cancer killer. Instead, it made the cancer worse and made the patients more miserable, a study found.

The surprising findings underscore the importance of doing rigorous studies before rushing to mix these pricey, new-generation drugs, the Dutch researchers and other experts said.

The doctors tried combining Erbitux and Avastin because lab tests and an earlier small study had shown promising results. For the study, Eli Lilly & Co.’s Erbitux was added to standard treatment, which includes Genentech Inc.’s Avastin.

But the results show “more is not always better,” said Dr. Robert Mayer, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. He wrote an editorial published with the study in today’s New England Journal of Medicine.