Cancer breakthrough as 'amazing' new treatment destroys tumours in terminally ill
A CANCER breakthrough has been made as scientists hail the results of an "amazing" wonderdrug that can destroy tumours in terminally ill patients.
By JACOB PAUL
14:14, Mon, Oct 11, 2021 Express.
A landmark trial found a mixture of two immunotherapy medicines harnessed patients’ immune systems to kill their own cancer cells. Researchers at the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) and The Royal Marsden NHS foundation trust found that the drug cocktail could shrink tumours in terminally ill head and neck patients cancer patients. In some, their cancer completely vanished, leaving doctors baffled to find no trace of disease.
Results from similar trials of the drug combinations have also given similar benefits for terminally ill kidney, skin and bowel cancer patients.
Chemotherapy, often the standard form of treatment for cancer patients who have advanced forms of the disease, is often painful and can have significant side effects.
The Phase 3 trial of the wonderdug involved almost 1,000 cancer patients.
The results were described as “clinically meaningful”, as patients lived months or years longer and suffered far fewer side effects.
Professor Kristian Helin, ICR chief executive said that these were “promising results".
He told The Guardian: “Immunotherapies are kinder, smarter treatments that can bring significant benefits to patients.”
The trial results revealed the immunotherapy combination gave a particularly high success rate in a group of patients whose tumours had high levels of an immune marker called PD-L1.
Survival rates in those with high levels of the marker who received the immunotherapy combination were the highest ever reported in a first line therapy trial of relapsed or metastatic head and neck cancer.
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