‘Promising’ trial gives hope of new treatment for deadliest cancer

Lost battle: Alan Rickman, pictured with his wife Rima Horton

London researchers testing a new way of treating the deadliest common cancer have announced “potentially very promising” results.

Scientists at the Barts Cancer Institute and King’s College London seem to have cured mice with pancreatic cancer by giving them immunotherapy that uses their white blood cells to attack tumours.

The approach is similar to the one being successfully used on children with the blood cancer leukaemia.

About 10,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer each year, and only about 21 per cent survive for 12 months.

Alan Rickman and Patrick Swayze and Apple founder Steve Jobs have all been killed by the disease.

Patrick Swayze died of pancreatic cancer aged 57
PA Archive/PA Images

It is often spotted only once it has spread, but can be cured by surgery in the early stages. For decades survival rates have barely changed, while the number of cases are on the rise. By 2026 it is expected to be the fourth biggest cancer killer.

A £500,000 grant from Pancreatic Cancer UK has funded three years of research that aims to double the five-year survival rate, which is currently below five per cent. Professor Nick Lemoine, director of Barts Cancer Institute, said it would be wrong to describe the results as a “breakthrough” because the research was incomplete and yet to be published. But he hopes trials on patients could start by 2020.

He told the Evening Standard: “We have achieved what appears to be cures in the animal models, but this still remains early days. So far, all the signals look really positive.”

The process involves harvesting white cells in blood and engineering them so they multiply, before reinfusing them. At the same time, a virus is altered to cause the cancer cells to send out signals that identify them to the immunotherapy treatment.

The pancreas creates insulin and enzymes to digest food. Symptoms of the cancer include abdominal and back pain, weight loss and indigestion, making it difficult for GPs to diagnose.

Professor Lemoine added: “The news is that there is a potentially very promising therapy.

“It is being talked about for licence by the NHS for children’s leukaemia. They’re seeing long-term survival for children who would otherwise have died. That is not our work, but our approach is exploring what was discovered on the changes of the surface of cancer cells.”

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