Health Desk- 30 Nov’19: A major trial of an immunotherapy
drug has shown it can be effective in some men with advanced prostate cancer.
The men had stopped responding to the main treatment
options.
Researchers found that a small proportion of men, described
as "super responders", remained well even after the trial ended,
despite a very poor prognosis before treatment.
Last week it was reported the same drug had proved effective
in treating advanced head and neck cancers.
Immunotherapy uses our own immune systems to recognise and
attack cancer cells.
It's already being used as a standard treatment for some
cancers such as melanomas - and being tested on many others too.
It found that one in 20 men with advanced prostate cancer
responded to the drug pembrolizumab - and saw their tumours actually shrink or
disappear altogether.
Although a relatively small number, some of them gained
years of extra life, the study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found.
The phase II clinical trial, led by the Institute of Cancer
Research and the Royal Marsden, involved 258 men with advanced prostate cancer
who had run out of all other options on treatment.
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