United States: Almost over 50 percent of the patients who have been diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma survive for at least 10 years if they are administered two immunotherapy drugs at once, a trial show.
The combined treatment has altered prognosis in a form of skin cancer that previously was considered virtually incurable and patients with the disease now live long enough to die of other diseases.
This, even though 15 years ago a mere 5 % of patients with late-stage melanoma lived for five years, and most would die within six to nine months of diagnosis of the disease.
As reported by The Guardian, Cure has however been defined as a state where an individual is restored back to his/her age bracket with reference to his/her health complications, according to James Larkin, consultant and who is also a medical oncologist at the Royal Marsden NHS foundation trust and a professor at the Institute of Cancer Research.
“Having treated a lot of these patients over the past 10 years it seems that some are cured: She said, they’re back to their normal lives, they’re getting on with things.
Nearly 20,000 Britons are believed to be getting melanoma this year, which incidentally will be the highest ever, mainly because of a higher incidence among people aged 60 and above. Thus, a big number of cases may be prevented as they are due to excessive exposure to UV light. The trial focused on two drugs; ipilimumab and nivolumab which are both immune checkpoint inhibitors in 945 patients with stage 3 and 4 melanomas, with spreading tumours.
The drugs act on the molecular signals that are in-built to regulate the immune system, and that effectively acts as a ‘stopper’ for the immune system to react against normal cells. When the brakes are cut the immune system can easily identify and destroy the cancer cells.
The said strategy is proven effective. Analysis of data published in New England Journal of Medicine and presented at European Society for Medical Oncology in the Barcelona Sunday indicates that melanoma-specific survival in patients enrolled in the trial was higher than overall survival suggesting that patients were surviving long enough to die from other causes.
At the 10 years the melanoma-specific survival rate for the patients treated with both the drugs was almost 52 percent. Also Larkin called the results as well remarkable and many toxic anti-cancer drugs that also destroy the tumors cells stop working over time but the response to immune checkpoint inhibitors is long lasting.
Also the trial marks the longest follow up to date of the particular patients receiving the drugs for the advancement of melanoma and giving the doctors the crucial information on how long the treatment is really very effective for the overall survival rates and the side effects also .
while there are some of the patients experienced side effects early on,no new problems arose later and the patients who stopped the treatment early because of the the significant side-effects still benefited from the combination therapy and as the drugs. Had already taken the effects on their immune system.