Immunotherapy drug 'first breakthrough in 20 years' for head and neck cancer treatment
31 May 2025, 01:13 | Updated: 31 May 2025, 01:18
Patients in a clinical trail of a drug used to treat advanced head and neck cancer lived an average of 2.5 years longer cancer free.
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The breakthrough is the first for patients with the notoriously difficult-to-treat form of cancer in more than 20 years.
An international study into new ways to treat advanced head and neck cancer involved experts from 24 countries, including a British team at the Institute of Cancer Research in London.
More than 350 patients in the UK were given the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab before and after surgery to prime the body's defences.
Researchers said giving the patients the drug before surgery trains the body to hunt down and destroy the cancer if it returns.
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The patients all had advanced head and neck cancers in one area, that had not spread to the rest of the body.
More than 50 per cent of those diagnosed with advanced head and neck cancers die within five years.
Prof Kevin Harrington, who led the trial in the UK, said: "We give the immune system the chance to have a good look at the tumour to generate anti-tumour immunity and then, after removal of the tumour, we continue to amplify that immune response by giving the drug continually for up to a year."
He said immunotherapy "could change the world" for patients with head and neck cancer.
The drug doubled the length of time patients remained cancer free, on average, from two and a half years to five years.
After three years, patients given pembrolizumab had a 10% lower risk of their cancer returning elsewhere in the body.
Harrington said the approach worked "particularly well" for some patients but that the treatment benefited all patients in the trial.
He recommended that the drug be made available on the NHS.
The study findings are being presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting.
About 12,800 new head and neck cancer cases are diagnosed in the UK every year.
