Heath Reporter
Laura MarstonHundreds of thousands of people with advanced head and neck cancer could live longer without their cancer returning thanks to an immunotherapy medication, suggests a clinical trial.
This is the first sign of a breakthrough for patients with this cancer difficult to treat for 20 years, scientists say behind research.
Laura Marston, 45, of the Derbyshire, says that she is “surprised that she is still there” after having received chances of “disastrous” survival after a diagnosis of advanced language cancer six years ago.
She received immunotherapy before and after surgery, which, according to researchers, helps the body learn to attack cancer if it comes back.
Head and neck cancer are notoriously difficult to treat and there has been little change in the way patients are treated in two decades.
More than half of those diagnosed with advanced cancers of the head and neck die within five years.
Laura had only 30% chance of surviving so long after her diagnosis in 2019, after having an ulcer on her language which would not disappear.
The next step was a major surgery to remove her tongue, as well as lymph nodes in her neck, then she had to learn to speak and eat again.
“I was 39 years old and I was devastated,” she told BBC News.
As part of an international study on new ways of treating cancer, involving experts from the London cancer research institute, Laura was one of the more than 350 patients given the Pembrolizumab immunotherapy medication before and after surgery to initiate body defenses.
Professor Kevin Harrington, who directed the test in the United Kingdom, explains: “We give the immune system the possibility of looking at the tumor to generate anti-tumor immunity, then, after the withdrawal of the tumor, we continue to amplify this immune response by giving the drug continuously for a year.”
A similar number of patients diagnosed with similar cancers have received the usual care offered. They all had advanced cancers of the head and neck in an area, which had not spread to the rest of the body.
The new approach has shown positive results. He doubled the duration of cancer patients, on average, between 2.5 to five years.
After three years, patients who received pembrolizumab had a risk of 10% cancer from their cancer elsewhere in the body.
‘Gave me my life in return’
Six years later, Laura works full time and says that she is “in a good place and goes very well”.
“It was phenomenal for me, because I’m here, capable of talking to you.
“I didn’t expect to come so far,” said Laura.
“My prognosis was quite disastrous.”
She had muscled her left arm and placa in her mouth to fill the void left by her tongue. It was a difficult trip.
“The simple fact of having this incredible immunotherapy made my life again.”
The researchers say that the key to their results was to give patients the medication before surgery, which forms the body to track down and kill cancer if ever it comes back.
Professor Harrington says that immunotherapy “could change the world” for these patients.
“This considerably decreases the risk of cancer spread around the body, how incredibly difficult to treat,” he said.
About 12,800 new cases of head and neck cancer are diagnosed in the United Kingdom each year.
The approach worked “particularly well” for some patients, but it was “really exciting” to see the treatment benefiting all the patients in the trial, said Professor Harrington. He added that it should now be made available on the NHS.
The results of the study are presented in the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).
The trial, called Keynote, involved 192 hospitals in 24 countries, was led by the Washington University Medical School in St Louis and funded by the MSD pharmaceutical company.
