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Immunotherapy drug improving outcomes for advanced lung cancer patients

Wednesday 5th April 2017
Immunotherapy drug nivolumab has shown promise in improving survival outcomes for patients with non-small-cell lung cancer. Image: cgtoolbox via iStock
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An immunotherapy drug known as nivolumab is leading to significantly improved outcomes for patients with advanced forms of non-small-cell lung cancer, new research results show.

Doctors based at the John Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center in the US have been investigating the effects of nivolumab on patients with advanced lung cancer over the past seven years and have found that it dramatically increases a person's chances of living for five years or more after diagnosis.

Typically, only between one and four per cent of people who are diagnosed with non-small-cell lung cancer survive for five years or more after finding out they have the disease.

However, after taking nivolumab, this survival rate increased to 16 per cent (16 people in total). The immunotherapy drug only needed to be taken once a fortnight over a two-year period in order for these results to be achieved.

Of the 16 individuals who survived beyond five years after diagnosis, 12 did not require any further treatment and their existing symptoms did not worsen, while the other four trial participants were either deemed eligible for another course of chemotherapy or were enrolled in a different clinical trial.

More than half (nine) of the 16 long-term survivors were male, but as the trial involved such a small study sample, it cannot be deemed that men are more likely to respond to nivolumab treatment than women.

This suggests that their health was strong enough to withstand further tests, which was unlikely to have been the case if immunotherapy treatment had not been administered.

Dr Julie Brahmer, director of the John Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, stated: "Now, we need to figure out how to make more patients responsive to immunotherapy by exploring combinations of immunotherapy drugs and other treatment agents.

"It's clear that the patients who beat the survival odds are in some ways truly unique biologically and the goal now is to discover exactly how immunotherapy is keeping their disease in check."

The evidence from the research was presented at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting on Monday April 3rd.

Written by James Puckle

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