The initial results of the trial of a drug in treating lung cancer in patients have yielded promising effects. At a cancer conference on Saturday, the researchers said that the drug has shown exceptional effectiveness on certain genes.

Nearly 90% of the 82 patients involved in the study, depicted shrink in their tumors after two months of the intake of the drug, Pfizer Inc.'s researchers reported.

Doctors are expecting at least 10% of these patients to show improvement with the drug’s consumption.

These patients are essentially in the advanced stage of the disease. In a couple of these cancer patients, cancer has reached their brains.

They have been given an average of three other drugs. Crizotinib has now entered the last stage of testing, said lead researcher Dr. Yung-Jue Bang of the Seoul National University College of Medicine in South Korea.

Dr. Roy Herbst, lung cancer Chief at the University of Texas, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, said that although, it is early to celebrate the effectiveness of the drug, yet it appears to be quite promising so far.

"I don't think there is false hope. The data are so strong", said Dr. Alice Shaw, the Massachusetts General Hospital doctor.