LONDON (Reuters) — Treating patients with advanced kidney cancer before surgery with a combination of targeted therapies is safe, effective and may prolong their lives, researchers said yesterday.Scientists at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Centre, who presented their findings at a conference in Prague, studied the effect of giving the drugs bevacizumab and erlotinib to patients before their tumour was removed.

“The main aim of this study was to look at the efficacy and safety of using these targeted therapies before surgery, and our results have shown that there were few side effects and that it prolonged the survival of our patients,” said Eric Jonasch, a professor of medicine at the university.

Other studies have focused on the impact of giving the drug combo to patients after surgery but Jonasch and his team said their trial of 20 patients is the first to investigate the pre-surgical effect.

Bevacizumab, which is sold under the name Avastin, was developed by US biotech group Genentech and its partner Roche Holding AG.

It is an anti-angiogenesis drug which starves the tumour of blood supply.

Erlotinib, which is marketed by Roche as Tarceva, is a drug that blocks a signal which tells cells to divide.