As reported by The Times, thousands of older patients with advanced lung cancer will be able to live longer thanks to a treatment breakthrough
A trial led by University College London found that atezolizumab, an immunotherapy drug, could be given to over-65s to double their chance of surviving for two years.
At present, the drug is given only to the fittest lung cancer patients, who are seen as less likely to suffer side effects. However, about 40% of patients are elderly and have other health conditions — leaving them with few treatment options because they are unable to tolerate some types of chemotherapy.
The trial of 302 patients in poor health found that atezolizumab was safe in this older group and more effective than present treatments.
Overall, 24 % of patients who were treated with atezolizumab were still alive after two years, compared with 12% of those on chemotherapy.
The trial looked at patients with non-small cell lung cancer, which is the most common type of the disease, accounting for more than eight in ten cases.
The patients all had advanced-stage lung cancer, meaning it had spread and was incurable.
Lung cancer is the deadliest cancer in the UK. There are more than 48,000 cases and 34,000 deaths every year.
Professor Siow Ming Lee, who led the trial, said: “For over two decades, clinical trials have failed to provide significant therapeutic benefits to older [non-small cell lung cancer] patients with poor health who are unfit for standard platinum doublet chemotherapy.
“[This study] is the first randomised trial to show that immunotherapy treatment with first-line atezolizumab treatment significantly improves overall survival compared to single-agent chemotherapy for these poor-prognosis patients, with twice as many remaining alive at two years. The treatment also resulted in stabilised or improved health-related quality-of-life measures, and no new safety concerns were identified.”
The results of the trial, which was sponsored by Roche, the pharmaceutical group, were published in The Lancet. It showed that the immunotherapy treatment was safe and effective for older patients, meaning it could become standard practice on the NHS.
Separate research shows that lung cancer diagnoses in women are set to outnumber those among men for the first time.
Historically, more men than women have been diagnosed with lung cancer due to having higher smoking rates. But the smoking gap has narrowed since the 1970s.
On top of this, women live longer and make up a greater proportion of the older population, which has the highest cancer risks.
In an analysis for The Guardian, Cancer Research UK said that this year female cases would overtake those of males, with 27,332 and 27,172 cases respectively.
Be the first to comment