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Nov 2020
Immune-boosting drug therapy gives years of extra life to thousands of Britons with incurable bladder cancer
According to a newly published landmark trial, patients whose cancer has spread to other areas live around a third longer on the medicine than those given standard chemotherapy treatment, some patients surviving over three years after the start of their treatment, more than double the average prognosis.
Bladder cancer, which is diagnosed in over 10,000 people in the UK every year, has a notoriously poor outlook as it is often diagnosed only after it has spread to other parts of the body.
Early symptoms, such as blood in the urine or a burning sensation, are often mistaken for common urinary tract infections.
The drug, avelumab, is a type of immunotherapy, which means it helps the immune system to locate and destroy cancer cells. Scientists at Queen Mary’s University and St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London found that the treatment, given intravenously, was able to shrink tumours and keep them microscopic for twice as long as chemotherapy.
One of the 700 patients who took part in the study, saw five tumours in his lung, leg, neck, abdomen and bladder, shrink to such an extent that they became undetectable on scans.
Professor Thomas Powles, lead investigator on the trial and Director at the St Barts Cancer Centre, said “Such a dramatic reduction in the death rate is normally unheard of in such patients. But because this drug works by supercharging the body’s natural defence system, rather than attacking the cancer itself, it still works even if the tumour itself changes. This means it keeps working for a lot longer than chemotherapy does.”
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Posted by Tony May, Partner/head of Clinical Negligence Department, Chadwick Lawrence LLP (tonymay@chadlaw.co.uk ), medical negligence lawyers and clinical negligence solicitors in Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield and Halifax, West Yorkshire.
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