Washington, D.C.-The apparent effectiveness that the drug Avastin has in actual usage is apparently less than it was believed when it first received US Drug regulator approval.
According to a study reported on Sunday in the New York Times the drug that was first approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2004 may not be as effective in cancer treatment as it was first thought.
The drug was recently approved for treatment of Breast Cancer by the FDA in 2008.
Avastin is an expensive drug and the cost for a single patient for one year can be $100,000 dollars a year, and it may only help people live only a few months longer.
The drug was approved for usage to treat advanced colon, lung or breast cancer in 2004.
The drug company Genentech makes Avastin, and it is often thought of as a wonder drug.
It cuts off the blood supply to a tumor, and it is one of the most popular cancer drugs in the world with sales in 2007 topping $3.6 billion dollars in worldwide sales.
But studies are showing that the drug even when aggressively prescribed is only benefiting the life span of patients by a few months.
Other research is showing that the drug overall may be a lot less effective than the FDA thought when it approved its use first in 2004.