Doctors hail drug that may have helped MP

A VACCINE could add years to the lives of those with the aggressive brain cancer that killed Dame Tessa, a study suggests.

Researchers found patients with glioblastoma survived for almost two years on average after being treated with the drug and surgery. Almost a third lived for an average of 40.5 months – with some living for more than seven years.

The drug, known as DCVax, uses the immune cells of patients to target tumours. The standard treatment is surgery followed by radiotherapy and chemotherapy and patients usually live for between 15 and 17 months on average.

Co-author of the paper, Professor Keyoumars Ashkan, of London’s King’s College Hospital, said the interim findings of the 11-year project ‘hint at a major breakthrough’.

The Brain Tumour Charity said the preliminary results, published in the Journal of Translational Medicine, were ‘remarkably promising’.