Skin cancer: 'Complete cure of 20 percent of patients with the help of two new drugs'

A study shows that after treatment with two immunotherapy drugs, no signs of tumor are seen in one-fifth of people with advanced melanoma.

The first data on the simultaneous use of ipilimumab and nivolumab in a group of 142 patients showed that 69% of them were still alive after two years.

British doctors who have performed these treatments describe the results as “very encouraging.”

Melanoma is the most dangerous type of skin cancer and the sixth most common cancer in the UK, killing more than two thousand people in the country each year.

Data from another study on the treatment of melanoma with the help of a drug called pembrolizumab, manufactured by Merck, also shows an increase in the life expectancy of patients.

This drug also works by cutting off the brakes on the immune system from attacking cancer cells.

Initial results of these experimental treatments, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed that a third of patients lived for 12 months without any signs of tumor.

The study was conducted by doctors at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London.

The importance of combining medications

The immune system provides a powerful defense against infection. However, there are many "brakes" within this system designed to prevent attacks on the body's own tissues.

Cancer – which is a defective copy of healthy tissue – can use these brakes to avoid immune system attack.

Ipilimumab and nivolumab are designed to cut these brakes.

Both have become standard treatments for melanoma, but most researchers believe their combination is of fundamental importance.

This experimental treatment showed that the survival rate of patients two years after taking ipilimumab alone was 53 percent, and none of the patients' tumors completely disappeared.

The survival rate for those who took both drugs was 69 percent after two years, and in 22 percent of them, the effects of the cancer completely disappeared.

However, more than half of the patients experienced severe and sometimes very dangerous side effects that led to discontinuation of treatment.

Although this new class of drugs leads to stunning results in some patients, it can cause side effects because it affects the entire immune system.

However, British scientists are now testing a method that only manipulates the immune cells that attack cancer, leaving the rest of the immune cells untouched.

Source: BBC Persian