Incredible hope for lung cancer patients as doctors reveal new drugs are adding years to people's lives

New drug treatments have offered incredible hope for lung cancer patients as doctors say they can add years to eligible people's lives. 

The new set of targeted and immune-boosting drugs can add months or even years to life expectancy according to results released this weekend at the American Society of Clinical Oncology conference in Chicago.   

Dr. Angela DeMichele, a medical oncologist at Penn Medicine, told The Wall Street Journal: 'It had such an abysmal prognosis. And now we have people who are being cured who we never thought would be cured.' 

Among the new treatment options are AstraZeneca's Tagrisso and Imfinzi and Pfizer's Lorbrena. 

The drugs are all approved by the Food and Drug Administration and are in use to treat even the most notoriously resistant forms of lung cancer.

Matt Hiznay was diagnosed with stage-four lung cancer in 2011 and has been on Lorbrena for nine years

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among men and women in the US, killing some 125,000 Americans each year. 

For decades it has been considered a death sentence, but the new treatments suggest that is changing.  

Tagrisso can contain lung cancer for nearly three years longer than chemotherapy and radiation alone for some stage-three patients, according to one of the new studies.

Immunotherapy drug Imfinzi can extend some patients with aggressive lung cancer lives by nearly two years. 

And a third study presented at the conference found that 60 percent of advanced patients were still alive five years after taking Lorbrena compared to just 8 percent of patients on an older drug. 

Dr. David Spigel, chief scientific officer at Sarah Cannon Research Institute in Tennessee, said: 'These results are really outstanding. A really major step forward in lung-cancer care.'

Matt Hiznay, from Ohio, was diagnosed with stage-four lung cancer in 2011 and has been on Lorbrena for nine years. 

After trying a series of older treatments, he joined a trial for Lorbrena in 2015 and has been on it ever since. 

A study presented at the conference found that 60 percent of advanced patients were still alive five years after taking Lorbrena compared to just 8 percent of patients on an older drug

Tagrisso can contain lung cancer nearly three years longer than chemotherapy and radiation alone for some stage-three patients, according to one of the new studies

He has earned his doctorate, got married and had a daughter. 

He told The Journal: 'It became a bit easier to see the future again.' 

Dr. Lecia Sequist, a lung-cancer specialist at Mass General Cancer Center, said the results show how far cancer treatment has come. 

She said: 'It’s like Dorothy looking around and saying we’re not in Kansas anymore.'

Despite the progress, researchers say there is still a long way to go. Often the cancer comes back and becomes incurable, or the cancer is caught too late to be treatable in the first place. 

But Dr. Lauren Averett Byers, a lung-cancer oncologist at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, told The Journal: 'To see something where we’re measuring benefit in years versus months is a huge step in the right direction.'