-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- A cancer treatment that comes in a pill is as effective as the standard chemotherapy for lung patients who had previously been treated for their cancer , according to a study released Thursday . The intravenous chemotherapy treatment had more severe side effects than the pill in this study . Results of a large clinical trial were published in the British medical journal The Lancet . The trial was designed to compare Iressa , a daily pill , to Taxotere , an IV-chemotherapy drug that 's administered every three weeks . This international study included more than 1,400 patients for whom standard chemotherapy had been ineffective . `` Iressa and Taxotere have same survival outcomes , '' according to Dr. Edward Kim , lead author of the study and assistant professor in M.D. Anderson Cancer Center 's Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology in Houston , Texas . The study was paid for by the maker of Iressa , AstraZeneca . Kim says the Food and Drug Administration mandated that the pharmaceutical company conduct this clinical trial . In the study , patients taking Iressa had an average survival of 7.6 months , and 32 percent survived one year , compared with patients getting the chemotherapy drug Taxotere . Their survival was an average of eight months ; 34 percent of patients survived one year . Kim says this is the largest study in lung cancer comparing an oral therapy with chemotherapy . Dr. Bruce Johnson , a lung cancer specialist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston , Massachusetts , who was not involved in this research , says , `` this study did what it intended to do in showing equivalency . I ca n't imagine any clearer evidence . '' One significant difference between the two drugs is in side effects . Patients taking Iressa mainly experienced skin rashes and/or mild diarrhea . Patients on Taxotere had many more severe side effects , including hair loss , numbness in hands and feet , severe diarrhea , a drop in blood cells and nausea . Given the difference , `` the single pill trumps chemotherapy , '' said Dr. Paul Bunn , who heads the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer Research and also was not involved in the clinical trial . Johnson says that 5 to 10 percent of patients taking Taxotere will drop out every three weeks because of side effects . Kim points out that if the two treatments have the same survival benefit but one has fewer side effects and is easier to take , doctors want their patients to have the option for this treatment . Currently , no new lung cancer patients can get Iressa , because doctors are no longer allowed to prescribe it . In 2003 , Iressa got fast-track FDA approval as a treatment for patients with non-small-cell lung cancer , specifically for patients in whom standard chemotherapy had failed . The approval was based on two small phase II clinical trials that showed Iressa was able to shrink tumors by about 10 percent , which led the FDA to believe that the drug would lead to a `` positive effect on survival or benefits . '' More on Iressa from the FDA When the FDA gives a drug accelerated approval , it requires that the manufacturer continue testing it to determine whether there 's a clinical benefit to the patient . If further studies ca n't show this type of benefit , the FDA has the power to withdraw that drug from the market . But a year later , results were revealed from a larger , phase III clinical trial that compared Iressa with placebo in patients for whom chemotherapy was ineffective . `` Iressa was better but not statistically significant , '' said Bunn , who also directs the University of Colorado Cancer Center . Given this information and because another lung cancer pill -- Tarceva -- had shown a survival benefit , the FDA decided that '' it is not reasonable to start new patients on Iressa . '' Since 2005 , the FDA allows only those already getting Iressa prescribed or those enrolled in clinical trials that were under way at the time to continue taking Iressa . All three lung cancer experts CNN spoke with regularly see patients and have treated them with Iressa or the other available lung cancer drugs . All said they could n't predict whether the FDA would allow new patients to be treated with Iressa based on this and other recent studies . Kim believes that based on this data , Iressa `` is a valid treatment option for patients with pretreated non-small lung cancer . '' Both Bunn and Johnson say that more choices in treatment will always benefit the patients .