CANCER BREAKTHROUGH: New drug set to shrink cervical cancer tumours

More than a quarter of terminally ill patients taking part in trials of the immunotherapy drug had “significant” tumour shrinkage or complete remission. 

Nivolumab , which stimulates the body’s own immune system to attack cancer cells, is already licensed to treat lung and the deadly skin cancer, melanoma. 

However, this is the first time this new generation treatment has been shown to be effective for cervical cancer. 

Professor Tim Meyer, a specialist in experimental cancer medicine at London’s University College Hospital and a key trial researcher, said: “This is very exciting and we are now recruiting for larger-scale trials to confirm the findings. 

“Immunotherapy treatment has shown good results in other cancers and is showing real promise in cervical cancer, giving hope to patients for whom there were no other options. We believe this could prolong the lives of many patients and even put some into remission.” 

Leading cancer specialist Karol Sikora, former adviser to the World Health Organisation, said: “This is very encouraging and the next step is for us to find out which patients would benefit from this treatment in advance as it is very costly. This personalised approach is the future of cancer medicine.” 

The multi-centre early phase trial, carried out at the National Institute for Health Research, Clinical Research Facility at the University College Hospital, London, together with other centres in the UK, Europe and the United States, involved 24 women with advanced cancers of the cervix and nearby tissues who failed to respond to traditional treatment. 

Nivolumab targets and blocks a protein called PD-1 on the surface of certain immune cells, called T-cells. Blocking PD-1 activates T-cells to find and kill cancer cells. 

The breakthrough findings were presented to the American Society of Clinical Oncology on Friday at the world’s largest cancer conference in Chicago. 

Cervical cancer affects 3,300 women in Britain every year, an average of nine new diagnoses every day, and leads to 890 deaths.