“More than half of people diagnosed with advanced melanoma now survive for at least 10 years when they receive a double hit of immunotherapy drugs,” reports The Guardian:
The combined treatment has transformed survival rates for a form of skin cancer that once had a grim prognosis, with some patients now living long enough that they die from other causes. Fifteen years ago, only one in 20 patients with advanced melanoma survived for five years, with many dying within six to nine months of the condition being confirmed….
The trial explored two drugs, ipilimumab and nivolumab, both immune checkpoint inhibitors, in 945 patients with stage 3 or 4 melanoma, where tumours were spreading. The drugs work by disabling “brakes” built into the immune system to prevent it from turning on healthy tissues. Cut the brakes and the immune system can recognise and attack the cancer cells.
The approach is highly effective….At 10 years, the melanoma-specific survival rate for patients treated with both drugs was 52%….While the results are impressive, efforts are now focused on the substantial portion of patients who do not respond to the immunotherapies. It is unclear why the drugs fail in many patients, and there is probably no single answer, with roles for the biology of the patient’s tumour and their immune system.
Immunotherapy drugs are not the only thing cutting skin-cancer deaths. In June, it was reported that a personalized mRNA cancer vaccine cuts the death rate for melanoma over a 2.5 year period by 40-50%, increasing the survival rate over that period from 55.6% for immunotherapy alone to 74.8%.
A new blood test can detect which bowel cancer patients can receive a lifesaving immunotherapy rather than chemotherapy, enabling them to be cancer free after surgery. Around 10-15% of patients with stage two or three bowel cancer have a particular genetic make-up that enables them to benefit from the life-saving immunotherapy known as pembrolizumab.
Even if these medical advances save countless lives, government regulations may delay them from being used for years. The FDA can take years to approve vaccines, medical tests, and drugs. The FDA didn’t approve a home test for HIV until 24 years after it first received an application. According to an FDA advisory committee, the test held “the potential to prevent the transmission of more than 4,000 new HIV infections in its first year of use alone.” That means thousands of people likely got infected with AIDS as a result of the delay in approving it. At least a hundred thousand people died waiting years for the FDA to approve beta blockers.
Earlier, a blood test was developed that detects many brain cancers that doctors previously couldn’t detect until it is too late to save most victims. The Guardian reported in January that “Surgeons and scientists have developed a world-first blood test for brain cancer that experts say could revolutionize diagnosis, speed up treatment and boost survival rates.” Despite advances in fighting other kinds of cancer, “brain tumors have remained notoriously difficult to diagnose. They affect hundreds of thousands of people worldwide each year, and kill more children and adults under the age of 40 … than any other cancer.” But “now a research team has designed a simple blood test that could help diagnose patients with even the deadliest forms of brain cancer much more quickly, potentially sparing them from invasive and high-risk surgical biopsies….Experts said the inexpensive liquid biopsy could also lead to earlier diagnosis, which in turn would speed up treatment and potentially increase survival rates. The test would be particularly beneficial for patients with ‘inaccessible’ brain tumors, who could benefit from starting treatment as soon as possible.” Researchers “found the test could accurately diagnose a range of brain tumors, including glioblastoma (GBM), the most commonly diagnosed type of high-grade brain tumor in adults, astrocytomas and oligodendrogliomas.”
