Remarkable medical breakthroughs that show we’re finally winning war the cancer against

It’s the holy grail of medicine: A cure for the most feared disease of all. As this special report reveals, we’re closer than ever . . .

FINDING a cure for cancer is one of the Holy Grails of medicine. However, a series of recent breakthroughs raises the prospect that we’re finally getting to grips with the disease that half of us will develop.

Cancer survival rates in the UK have doubled over the past 40 years and already half of cancer patients live for more than ten years.

But according to Professor Karol Sikora, one of the country’s leading specialists and dean of the University of Buckingham Medical School, in ten years that figure will be closer to 70 per cent, meaning that, for many, cancer will become a disease you live with, rather than die from.

‘Over the past decade, there has been a huge increase in our understanding of the molecular changes that occur in the body’s cells that lead to cancer,’ he says. ‘And in another ten years we will understand a lot more. We are making very good progress.’

Here is a round-up of some of the latest and most promising developments.

BLOOD TEST SPOTS CANCER BEFORE IT DEVELOPS

IN ONe of the more exciting breakthroughs announced just this week, scientists are developing a blood test that can diagnose any type of cancer a decade before symptoms appear.

Taking a sample of a patient’s blood and running it through a machine in the laboratory, they can check for any DNA shed by tumours — this starts circulating in the bloodstream long before patients feel symptoms, giving doctors an early warning that the patient will develop cancer.

This DNA can tell scientists where tumours are growing and how far the cancer has spread. U.S. researchers believe the test, known as liquid biopsy, could halve cancer death rates and would be particularly beneficial for the deadliest forms of the disease such as lung, pancreatic and ovarian, which are often diagnosed late.

Trials into the test, carried out on 161 patients already diagnosed with breast, lung or prostate cancer and presented at the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) conference in Chicago this week, found it could correctly identify the tumour in 90 per cent of cases.

The test, which has received funding from Microsoft founder Bill Gates, could be available within two years. The eventual goal is to offer it to patients alongside routine checks on their blood pressure and cholesterol at their GP surgery.

It currently costs £1,500 a time, but that figure should come down. Dr Nick Turner, from the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, said: ‘The potential is very exciting.’

3p STATIN BOOSTS SURVIVAL

STATINS — drugs widely taken to lower cholesterol — also reduce the risk of dying from breast, bowel, prostate, ovarian and bone cancer. A major new study involving almost 200,000 women with breast cancer has found the 3p-a-day pills boosts survival rates by 40 per cent by halting the growth of tumours.

This could lead to the drug being routinely used to treat the disease alongside surgery and conventional drugs such as chemotherapy.

The study, by scientists from the National Cancer Centre in Beijing, found that on average, women who had taken any kind of statin were 27 per cent less likely to die from cancer within four years than those who’d never taken the drug.

And patients taking the most commonly prescribed statins in the UK — such as simvastatin and atorvastatin — were 43 per cent less likely to die from the disease.

Scientists believe these types of statins stop cancer cells growing and dividing, and may also boost the immune system, enabling it to fight the disease better.

Baroness Delyth Morgan, of the charity Breast Cancer Now, said: ‘This study adds to the emerging picture that some statins could be useful for treating breast cancer, but we’d need to see clinical trials.’

A separate U.S. study on 22,110 men with prostate cancer, in 2015, found that those who happened to be taking statins were 42 per cent less likely to die from the illness.

GAME-CHANGER FOR NECK TUMOURS

AN IMMUNOTHeRAPy drug has been hailed as a potential ‘gamechanger’ after being found to greatly improve survival for patients with relapsed head and neck cancer — a disease notoriously difficult to treat.

Nivolumab is the first treatment to extend survival in a phase III clinical trial (where it was compared with standard treatment) for patients with head and neck cancer in whom chemotherapy had failed — and it did so with fewer side-effects than existing options.

After a year, 36 per cent of patients treated with nivolumab were still alive compared with 17 per cent of those treated with chemotherapy, according to the study of 361 patients published in the New england Journal of Medicine last year. These patients are currently expected to live less than six months. The drug works by stimulating the immune system to fight cancer cells.

Kevin Harrington, a professor of biological cancer therapies at the Institute of Cancer Research and a consultant at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust who led the trial, said: ‘Nivolumab could be a real game-changer for patients with advanced head and neck cancer.

‘These results indicate we now have a new treatment that can significantly extend life, and I’m keen to see it enter the clinic as soon as possible.’

SUPER-PRECISE RADIOTHERAPY

A PIONeeRING new type of radiotherapy machine could transform the care of cancer patients.

MR Linac machines are the first to be able to generate both MRI images and deliver X-rays as well as radiotherapy at the same time, allowing radiotherapy to be adjusted in real time and delivered more accurately and effectively.

It means patients can receive radiotherapy to tumours that move during treatment, when they breathe or if their bladder fills, for instance. This will make the machines particularly useful for treating lung, cervical, prostate, bowel and bladder cancer.

Delivering radiotherapy more precisely will also make the treatment more effective and reduce side-effects to surrounding healthy tissue. The Institute of Cancer research and The Royal Marsden Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, both in London, are the first places in the UK to install the machines.

The first patients are due to be treated later this year, initially through clinical trials.

MAJOR PROSTATE BREAKTHROUGH

A NeW way of treating prostate cancer could boost survival rates by almost 40 per cent, according to new research. Adding the hormone therapy abiraterone at the start of treatment means patients whose disease has spread to their pelvic area or other organs are 37 per

cent more likely to be alive after three years.

Researchers from Birmingham University who carried out the study say this new approach will ‘ transform’ prostate cancer treatment.

currently, patients whose cancer has spread to surrounding tissue are given only one type of hormone therapy. this blocks the action of the male sex hormone testosterone, which fuels tumour growth.

But the research involving 1,900 men presented at the aSco conference last week, found that abiraterone actually shuts down the production of this hormone.

Professor nicholas James, who led the cancer Research UK-funded trial known as StamPeDe, says: ‘these are the most powerful results i’ve seen from a prostate cancer trial — it’s a once-in-a-career feeling. this is one of the biggest reductions in death i’ve seen in any clinical trial for adult cancers.’

ADVANCE FOR ANGELINA’S CANCER

Women with the same genetic form of breast cancer as angelina Jolie could benefit from a drug that prevents tumours spreading by more than 40 per cent.

olaparib — a drug that works by preventing cancer cells from fixing fatal faults in their Dna — is used to treat women with the advanced hereditary form of the disease caused by the faulty BRca gene. Results of a new study show that after 14 months, those women taking the drug twice daily had a 42 per cent lower chance of the cancer spreading compared with standard chemotherapy, scientists at the memorial Sloan Kettering cancer center in new York told the aSco conference.

Kefah mokbel, professor of breast cancer surgery at the london Breast institute, says that olaparib is one of a number of targeted biological therapies which one day could be used instead of chemotherapy to treat breast cancer.

‘these drugs are not as toxic and target tumours more precisely. the hope is to treat breast cancer in the same way as chronic conditions such as diabetes. We can’t cure them, but we can keep them under control.