Cancer drug’s ‘spectacular success’ offers new hope

A NEW drug is producing ‘spectacular’ results in treating patients with bladder cancer, which kills 5,000 people in Britain a year.

Doctors are hailing the immunotherapy drug known as an ‘anti-PDL1’ as potentially the biggest advance in the treatment of the disease in 30 years.

During tests, the drug, given by intravenous drip, cleared all visible tumours from two patients with advanced cancer in a matter of weeks.

It shrank tumours in a quarter of patients treated – a success rate about double that of much more toxic chemotherapy.

Professor Thomas Powles, of Barts Cancer Institute in London, led a small-scale trial, funded by pharmaceutical giant Roche, in which the drug was tested on 65 patients in Britain and elsewhere.

He said: ‘To show this spectacular response in these end-stage patients is extremely unusual.’

Professor Peter Johnson, of Cancer Research UK, said: ‘It’s exciting to see a potential new treatment for bladder cancer patients who have been waiting a long time for new therapies.’