Immunotherapy drug hailed as cancer ‘game changer’
PARIS — An immunotherapy drug has been described as a potential “game-changer” in promising results presented at the European Cancer Congress, according to a report in the
BBC Saturday. In a study of head and neck cancers, more patients taking nivolumab survived longer compared with those who were treated with chemotherapy.
In another study, combining nivolumab with another drug reduced the size of tumors in advanced kidney cancer patients, the BBC reported.
Immunotherapy works by harnessing the immune system to destroy cancer cells.
Advanced head and neck cancer has very poor survival rates.
In a trial of more than 350 patients, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, 36 percent treated with the immunotherapy drug nivolumab did not die after one year compared with 17 percent who received chemotherapy.
Patients also experienced fewer side effects from immunotherapy.
“The benefi ts were more pronounced in patients whose tumors had tested positive for HPV ( human papillomavirus). These patients survived an average of 9.1 months with nivolumab and 4.4 months with chemotherapy,” the BBC reported. Normally, this group of patients are expected to live less than six months, it added.
Early data from a study of 94 patients with advanced kidney cancer showed that the double hit of nivolumab and ipilimumab resulted in a significant reduction in the size of tumors in 40 percent of patients.
Of these patients, one in 10 had no sign of cancer remaining.
This compares with 5 percent of patients showing tumor reduction after standard therapy.
As yet, nivolumab has only been approved for treating skin cancer and in June it became one of the fastest medicines ever approved for NHS use, in combination with ipilimumab, for the same cancer.
Nivolumab and ipilimumab both work by interrupting the chemical signals that cancers use to convince the immune system they are healthy tissue.
In an interview wit BBC, Prof. Kevin Harrington of the Institute of Cancer Research and consultant at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, who led the head and neck cancer trial, said nivolumab could be a real “game changer” for patients with advanced head and neck cancers.
This trial found that it can greatly extend life among a group of patients who have no existing treatment options, without worsening quality of life.
“Once it has relapsed or spread, head and neck cancer is extremely difficult to treat. So it’s great news that 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.”
Prof. Paul Workman, chief executive of The Institute of Cancer Research, told BBC nivolumab was one of a new wave of immunotherapies that were beginning to have an impact across cancer treatment.