Washington (SmartAboutHealth) - A Novartis drug has recently received the approval of the United States as a treatment for patients with kidney cancer.

The latest Novartis drug is expected to treat renal cell cancer, the most common form of kidney cancer. The FDA has approved it yesterday.

Although the drug doesn’t cure cancer, it slows down the growth of tumors. Recent tests showed that patients who used the Afinitor drug had experienced tumor growths of 5 months as opposed to 2 months for patients taking no drugs at all.

Novartis’ Afinitor works by blocking a protein that helps cancer cells divide and grow.

It is said that the best chance for kidney cancer survival is through surgery. Most patients can survive for 5 years after the cancerous kidney has been isolated, however if the cancer had time to spread to various other areas of the body, the survival rate is deeply affected.

About 13,000 patients died from the deadly disease last year (The American Cancer Society).