Life-saving cancer treatment on NHS in months
SKIN cancer patients are set to receive revolutionary treatment on the NHS within months, doctors hope.
About 80 per cent of people with advanced melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer, die within five years of diagnosis.
But findings suggest combining two immune-boosting drugs could effectively cure more than half of cases.
Two years ago, The Mail on Sunday revealed that a small trial – giving ipilimumab and nivolumab together – had ‘spectacular’ early results shrinking tumours.
New results from the same trial, announced yesterday, show two-thirds of patients were alive three years after treatment began. Many are living normal lives, with a real prospect they will remain healthy for years to come. The immunotherapy ‘teaches’ the immune system to recognise and kill previously invisible cancer cells, much like a vaccine, potentially giving patients long-term protection.
The combination has been approved in the US for patients with advanced melanoma. European regulators are set to make a decision next spring – at which point doctors hope it will become available on the NHS.
Dr James Larkin, consultant medical oncologist at the Royal Marsden in London, said he hoped the treatment would be approved in the first half of next year.
Vet Cait Chalwin was given a six-week course of nivolumab and ‘ipi’ after she was diagnosed with advanced skin cancer two years ago. The mother-of-two’s lungs were riddled with tumours developed from a lump that was removed from her face in 2008.
Mrs Chalwin, of Land’s End, Cornwall, found after three months the tumours had retreated and she said there is now virtually no sign of them. The 43-year-old said: ‘Essentially I’m back to normal. It’s just amazing, unbelievable. I would be dead by now if I hadn’t had those drugs.’
From April, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) can ‘pre-approve’ drugs for NHS treatment before they are fully appraised. There is no guarantee that will be done for this therapy, which is also likely to be expensive, but Dr Larkin said pembrolizumab – another immunotherapy drug for skin cancer – had just been approved.
Melanoma is not the most common form of skin cancer but kills 2,200 a year in Britain.
Results presented at the Society for Melanoma International Congress in San Francisco showed 53 of the 78 trial patients were alive three years after treatment began. All had cancer that had spread to other organs.
Dr Larkin said patients in the trial were younger and fitter than average, which could positively skew the trial, but said the results were ‘very, very encouraging’.
Doctors believe combining immunotherapies arms patients with different weapons to fight cancer cells – boosting the proportion who respond and survive. However, many patients still fail to benefit. The trial was sponsored by Bristol-Myers Squibb, the maker of both drugs.