A fifth of people with advanced melanoma have no sign of tumours in their body after treatment with a pair of immunotherapy drugs, a study shows.
The first survival data on using ipilimumab and nivolumab in combination
showed 69% of patients, in a trial on 142, were still alive after two years.
UK doctors leading the trial said the results were "very
encouraging".
Melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer, is the sixth most common
cancer in the UK
It kills more than 2,000 people in Britain each year.
More studies on the emerging field of immunotherapy will be presented
later.
Immunotherapy revolution
The immune system is a powerful defence against infection. However, there
are many "brakes" built in to stop it attacking our own tissues.
Cancer - which is a corrupted version of healthy tissue - can take
advantage of those brakes to evade assault.
Ipilimumab and nivolumab are designed to cut the brakes.
Both have become standard therapies in melanoma, but most researchers
believe combination therapy will be essential.
The trial showed the survival rate after two years for ipilimumab alone was
53% and no patient's tumours had completely disappeared.
The equivalent figures for combination therapy were 69% and 22%.
However, more than half of patients had severe to life-threatening side
effects which stopped their treatment.
Dr James Larking, who ran part of the trial at the Royal Marsden Hospital
in London, told the BBC News website: "It is very encouraging to see that
survival rate.
"It will be important in terms of working out the benefit of these
treatments in the longer term, but nevertheless it's a relatively small study
still."
A much larger trial involving nearly
1,000 patients has
already started releasing data, but has not run for
long enough to produce survival figures.
Vicky Brown, 61 and from Cardiff, was diagnosed with malignant melanoma
that had spread to her lungs and breast in April 2013.
She started the combination therapy later that year.
"It worked within a month. There were lumps I could actually feel and
they disappeared quite quickly," she told the BBC.
She did face severe side effects including an upset liver and inflamed bowels
and a year later the cancer returned.
She is now on her second course of combination immunotherapy, which again
seems to have shrunk the tumours.
"My granddaughter is
now coming up to four and I now have a second grandchild and not to have been
part of their lives would have been heartbreaking, so I'm really
thankful," she added.
Historically, when a treatment fails and a cancer starts to grow again then
that drug has become useless. But Dr Larkin thinks "we're dealing with
something different here".
He added: "This combination of drugs alters the balance of immune
system, two years down the line the immune system might have stopped
recognising the tumour.
"To me it is extremely encouraging that giving the combination again
we can reintroduce recognition by the immune system - it is like a booster
dose."
Both drugs were developed by Bristol-Myers Squibb.
Prof Richard Marais, from Cancer Research UK, said the results were
"exciting" and "offer new hope to melanoma patients and their
families".
However, he added: "It's important to remember that there's an increased
likelihood of severe side effects when these drugs are combined.
"We need to identify which patients are most likely to benefit from
this combination and also which patients are most likely to experience the side
effects.
"That will help doctors to ensure each patient gets the best treatment
they need."
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