EXPERTS HAIL ‘NEW ERA’ IN CANCER TREATMENT

EXPERTS have hailed a “new era” for cancer treatments after achieving “spectacular” results from trials on a new class of drugs.

Immunotherapy, which harnesses the body’s immune system to attack cancerous cells, is proving so effective that in one British-led trial more than half of patients with advanced melanoma saw tumours shrink or brought under control, researchers said.

An international trial on 945 patients with advanced melanoma saw them treated with the drugs ipilimumab and nivolumab.

The treatments stopped cancer advancing for nearly a year in 58% of cases, with tumours stable or shrinking for an average of 11.5 months.

This was compared to 19% of cases for ipilimumab alone, with tumours stable or shrinking for an average of 2.5 months.

Professor Roy Herbst, chief of medical oncology at Yale Cancer Centre in the US, described some of the findings as “spectacular” and said immunotherapy could replace chemotherapy as the standard treatment for cancer within the next five years.

He said: “I think we are seeing a paradigm shift in the way oncology is being treated. The potential for long-term survival, effective cure, is definitely there.”

Professor Peter Johnson, director of medical oncology at Cancer Research UK, said: “The evidence suggests we are at the beginning of a whole new era for cancer treatments.”