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Cancer patients could be given a tailor-made series of drugs to hugely boost their survival chances, experts say
Patients with the deadliest types of the disease would be given individual ‘lists’ of drugs depending on the type of tumour.
Scientists from Cancer Research UK claim it will revolutionise the way the disease is treated and extend average survival rates for some types of cancer from four months to many years.
An initial trial will involve patients with lung cancer – the commonest but one of the most deadliest forms, claiming 35,000 lives in Britain a year.
If it is a success, patients with breast, prostate and bowel cancer could also be given the treatment within the next two years.
Over the next few months 300 patients with advanced lung cancer will be recruited to take part in the trial, which is being carried out at 18 hospitals in the UK.
Researchers will first carry out tests to determine the genetic make-up of each tumour in order to work out the types of drugs to be given.
Scientists hope it will give patients who are only expected to survive for four months the chance to live for many years.
Despite recent advancements in cancer treatment, the survival chances for certain types such as lung remain tragically low.
Around 43,500 Britons are diagnosed with lung cancer annually – just ten per cent of which live beyond five years.
Dr Harpal Kumar, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, said if the trial was successful, patients with breast, prostate and bowel cancer could be given the bespoke series of drugs within two years.
‘We are giving a number of options to patients who would otherwise have exhausted all their treatment,’ he said. ‘We are talking about the potential for thousands of patients to get another option.
‘I really believe that what we are doing is going to rewrite the rule book on how we do clinical trials.
Scientists from Cancer Research UK say the new treatment plans could be available within two years
‘It shifts the emphasis on designing a trial around a specific drug to designing a trial around a range of drugs for a specific patient.
‘So it’s much more patient- centric in its approach.
‘If it’s as successful as we expect it will be, we will fully then expect to roll it out to other types of cancer thereafter.’
The trial will be jointly run with the drug firms AstraZeneca and Pfizer, which are providing the treatments.
Recent figures from Cancer Research UK show the number of Britons diagnosed with cancer annually has soared by almost 50,000 in a decade. Some 330,000 cases were diagnosed in 2011, up from 283,000 in 2001.
The number included 50,000 with breast cancer, 40,695 with bowel cancer, 40,975 with prostate cancer, 42,026 with lung cancer and 12,818 with skin cancer.
Experts have blamed the rise on an ageing population, as well as obesity and alcohol consumption, which can trigger the disease.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: ‘By investing £11.5million a day into research and development for the life sciences we have made this country one of the best places in the world to carry out and invest in clinical trials, which has made ground-breaking programmes like this possible.’
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