A BREAKTHROUGH cancer treatment “could be the cure” for a “death sentence” form of the disease after making tumours disappear.
The experimental approach has seen remarkable success in some brain cancer patients – with experts saying it could be available on the NHS within five years.
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Over 12,000 people are diagnosed with brain tumours every year in the UK.
But just one in 10 patients are alive a decade after their diagnosis, according to Cancer Research UK.
Prognosis tends to be bleak due to how fast brain cancer spreads, as well as a lack of treatments able to successfully combat it.
But a new treatment plan that combines the drug ipilimumab with surgery, chemotherapy, or radiotherapy, could be a game-changer for many sufferers.
Read more on brain tumours
Ipilimumab – an immunotherapy drug given as a drip into the bloodstream that’s already used on the NHS to treat skin cancer – is first administered to shrink the tumour.
Experts behind the treatment say the drug helps patients’ own immune systems to seek out and destroy cancerous cells.
Patients are then offered surgery to remove what’s left of the tumour, or chemo and radiotherapy – in some cases both.
So far, only a handful of patients have been offered the innovative new treatment protocol pioneered by Dr Paul Mulholland, a brain cancer specialist at University College London (UCL).
Businesswoman Sara Sjölund became one of them after being diagnosed with brain cancer in 2018 at the age of 38, Mail Online reported.
Sara underwent radiotherapy, chemotherapy and surgery in an effort to halt the spread of her astrocytoma tumour, to no avail.
Running out of options by the middle of 2023, Sara was offered the chance to trial the novel brain cancer treatment plan.
After six months on ipilimumab, Sara’s tumour is “inactive”, according to Dr Mulholland.
“Sara’s scans show remnants of the tumour. As long as it stays as it is she will be fine,” he said.
Sara described it in this way: “Like a dead tree, it is still there but at the moment it does not look like it will regrow.”
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It’s too early to know the outcome of the businesswoman’s treatment, but Sara feels like she’s “been given [her] life back”.
She’s not the first to be offered – and see success from – the breakthrough treatment.
Ben Trotman, 41, who brought forward his own wedding after getting a shock glioblastoma diagnosis and being given “months to live” was left virtually disease-free after being enrolled in a world-first clinical trial for the treatment.
After “grappling with the fact he had gone from being apparently perfectly healthy to having months to live”, Ben saw his tumour recede in a way that was “previously unheard of”.
Cancer experts have suggested that the immunotherapy drug could in fact become a cure for brain cancer.
Dr Mathew Clement, from the Cancer Research Centre in Wales, told MailOnline: “It is not out of the question that it could be a cure.
“We know ipilimumab is effective for other cancers and we have shown that we can apply them to treat brain tumours.
“We could see this treatment offered on the NHS within five years.”
The same treatment programme was also used successfully by Prof Richard Scolyer, who was diagnosed with incurable grade 4 glioblastoma cancer after suffering a seizure last year.
‘WORK IN PROGRESS’
Brain cancer is particularly difficult to treat as many drugs can’t bypass the blood brain barrier – a protective wall of cells that acts as a filter and protects the brain from harmful substances and germs in the blood that could cause damage.
But immunotherapy drugs such as ipilimumab don’t encounter this issue, Dr Mulholland said, as they instead work by helping the body’s immune system T-cells to spot and attack tumours.
Researchers are planning an upcoming clinical trial that will focus on offering the drug as early as possible after patients are diagnosed.
While Sara only received the drug after standard treatment had failed, both Ben and Professor Scolyer were able to use it straight after diagnosis – leading their tumours to disappear.
The most common symptoms of a brain tumour
More than 12,000 Brits are diagnosed with a primary brain tumour every year — of which around half are cancerous — with 5,300 losing their lives.
The disease is the most deadly cancer in children and adults aged under 40, according to the Brain Tumour Charity.
Brain tumours reduce life expectancies by an average of 27 years, with just 12 per cent of adults surviving five years after diagnosis.
There are two main types, with non-cancerous benign tumours growing more slowly and being less likely to return after treatment.
Cancerous malignant brain tumours can either start in the brain or spread there from elsewhere in the body and are more likely to return.
Brain tumours can cause headaches, seizures, nausea, vomiting and memory problems, according to the NHS.
They can also lead to changes in personality weakness or paralysis on one side of the problem and problems with speech or vision.
The nine most common symptoms are:
- Headaches
- Seizures
- Feeling sick
- Being sick
- Memory problems
- Change in personality
- Weakness or paralysis on one side of the body
- Vision problems
- Speech problems
If you are suffering any of these symptoms, particularly a headache that feels different from the ones you normally get, you should visit your GP.
Source: NHS
As such, giving patients ipilimumab as early as possible may be the key to curing brain cancer, Dr Mulholland claimed.
“What we want to do is get patients early on in the disease before the body is weakened by chemotherapy and radiotherapy,” he said.
“Essentially we’re saying, let’s protect the immune system so it has the best shot at fighting the cancer.”
Other experts have urged caution on touting the success of the treatment plan, as it’s only been used on a handful of patients.
Dr Matthew Williams, a clinical oncologist at Imperial College London, told MailOnline that we can’t at present know if the drugs could be rolled out at a large scale to treat brain cancer.
“There are exciting developments but it is very much a work in progress at this stage,” he stated.
It is hoped that the clinical trial set to start next year will provide the data required to see the treatment rolled out on the NHS.
