Drugs for two cancers let patients live longer

Trial: Alison Bowles says she now feels "really well" after her cancer
12 April 2012

Thousands of cancer sufferers were today given new hope after a double breakthrough in treatment.

Major trials into both prostate and ovarian cancer have shown drugs can extend the life expectancy of patients at an advanced stage of the disease.

The studies were led by British experts and are being hailed as major advances.

The news puts pressure on the drugs rationing body, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, to fast-track the new drugs through the UK licensing system.

A landmark trial of drug Avastin sponsored by the Medical Research Council shows it can stall the progression of ovarian cancer by more than two months. This is based on women taking just half the dose used in other successful studies.

This is the first promising treatment in more than 20 years for a disease which is difficult to diagnose and kills thousands of women each year.

The study involved more than 1,500 women across Europe and was led by Dr Timothy Perren from St James's University Hospital in Leeds, with input from other top cancer specialists including Professor Jonathan Ledermann at University College London.

Nice has already been criticised for banning Avastin as a bowel cancer treatment. It ruled the drug is too costly at £23,100 for each treatment.
But Target Ovarian Cancer said there was a "moral imperative" to fast-track the drug. A spokeswoman said: "This needs to be done as fast as is humanly possible for the sake of the thousands of women who are diagnosed with ovarian cancer every year in the UK.'"

Avastin works by starving tumours. It stops them developing blood vessels which are vital for the tumour to grow by counteracting the hormone which helps the vessels develop.

Another drug developed by British scientists significantly extends survival for men with advanced prostate cancer. Abiraterone gives a four-month lifeline to patients suffering an aggressive form of the disease who have exhausted all other treatment options.

Survival "outcomes" from late-stage prostate cancer are poor. More than 10,000 men die from it each year.

Dr Johann de Bono, who led the trials into abiraterone, said the results may trigger a change in how doctors treat these patients.

Dr de Bono, from the Institute for Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, said: "This is extremely exciting because men with this aggressive type of prostate cancer currently have very few treatment options and a poor prognosis.

"Around one man in the UK dies every hour from this disease, so the news will be incredibly important to men with prostate cancer and their families."

Researchers are now planning trials to test abiraterone in men who have been diagnosed with prostate cancer at an earlier stage.

Cancer Research UK said the findings were a "significant step forward" in the treatment of patients.

Professor Malcolm Mason, Cancer Research UK's prostate cancer expert, said: These results showed that abiraterone provided a worthwhile extension to life in men who had exhausted all standard treatments for the disease. The drug is also easy to take as a tablet and has relatively few unpleasant side effects."

Treatment gave me lifeline

Mother-of-two Alison Bowles, 55, was told not to make plans for the future after doctors discovered she had advanced ovarian cancer.

But two years after that diagnosis, the care worker, from Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire, is in good health which she partly attributes to the drug Avastin.

Mrs Bowles took part in the ICON7 trial following surgery to remove tumours. The cancer has not returned and the care worker says she feels "really well".

She said: "I'm really well right now, healthy. I am looking forward and making plans. That's not something that I thought was possible when I was diagnosed in 2008. The information I was given at that time about what I could expect was very negative. Being part of the trial was very important to me because I thought to myself no one else has had this treatment before so it might change everything for me'."

Avastin enabled Mrs Bowles to return to work and she said the side effects from the drug were minimal.

She said: "I didn't have any side-effects apart from my blood pressure was raised a little."

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