London - A jab for skin cancer that has extended the lives of terminally ill patients for up to ten years has been made available in the UK for the first time.
Doctors said the move marked a ‘major milestone’ in the fight against the fastest growing cancer, which claims more than 2,000 lives in this country each year.
Trials have shown that Opdivo – a brand name for the drug nivolumab – boosts average survival rates by 56 per cent and some patients who had been given months to live have since returned to work.
It is one of a new type of drugs in so-called immunotherapy, which work by teaching the body’s immune system to attack cancerous cells. Experts describe them as a ‘paradigm shift’ in the war against cancer and they are particularly effective against some of the deadliest tumours.
The rates of skin cancer in the UK have increased five-fold since the 1970s and there are now 13,300 new cases every year. Many of those affected are suffering the deadly consequences of package holidays or spending too much time in the garden or on sunbeds.
The drug is administered through an injection every two weeks and costs £5,600 a month. It is not yet available on the NHS but is currently awaiting approval by the Cancer Drugs Fund, a pot of Government money to pay for life-extending new treatments.
A decision on whether it will be offered by the fund is expected within a few months and in the meantime patients will have to pay themselves or through private medical insurance.
Professor John Wagstaff, consultant cancer specialist at the South West Wales Cancer Institute, said: ‘The UK launch of nivolumab is a major milestone for the treatment of advanced melanoma and provides us with a new, effective option to help fight this cancer. Immunotherapies such as nivolumab are becoming a core part of our treatment armoury and we are seeing more and more patients with significant survival improvement using these medicines.
Professor Wagstaff, who has treated several patients with the drug, added: ‘What is particularly encouraging is that, in some patients, this survival can extend to months or even years.
‘Our hope for the future is to make this the case for more people as this field progresses.’
Gill Nuttall, of the charity Melanoma UK, said: ‘There has been an alarming rise in the number of cases of melanoma in the UK over recent years.
‘Sadly, this too often translates into people being diagnosed with an advanced form of the disease, which is a very difficult situation to manage. This news is therefore very welcome as it provides more options for patients and the potential of longer survival.’
Some patients initially diagnosed as terminally ill who were given the drug as part of early trials are still alive ten years on.
A trial involving 418 patients showed that the percentage still alive after a year was 56 per cent higher compared to those receiving standard chemotherapy.
It works by training the immune system to recognise cancerous cells and then attack them, constantly keeping them at bay.
Some patients’ tumours have shrunk by more than 50 per cent, which is enough to enable them to live normal lives again.
The drug also works for lung cancer and earlier this week it was made available for patients under a flagship Government scheme to fast-track promising new treatments.
Under this arrangement – the Early Access to Medicines Scheme – pharmaceutical companies pay for patients to receive the treatment as a way of bypassing years of bureaucracy before new drugs are approved.
Daily Mail