Blood cancer sufferers will be offered pioneering new immune drugs as “standard care” on the NHS following a successful trial involving patients who did not respond to other drugs.

Patients with a difficult-to-treat type of blood cancer will be offered pioneering immune drugs as “standard care” on the NHS.

Last week, watchdogs gave the green light to pembrolizumab after studies suggested that Hodgkin lymphoma patients who took it lived longer than those who received radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

In one trial, one in five patients who had not responded to other medications saw their cancer disappear. The disease slowed by another 47 percent. On average, pembrolizumab continued to work for just over a year.

Commenting on the results when they were released, Dr. Craig Moskowitz, clinical director of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, said the drug was “an important step forward in the treatment of these patients, who are generally young and have a particularly poor prognosis. . “It gives us the opportunity to help them in their fight against this devastating disease.”

Leading oncologist Hendrik-Tobias Arkenau said: “We know that pembrolizumab keeps these difficult-to-treat lymphoma patients healthy longer than other therapies.” “They also live longer in general, so this is very good news.”

Pembrolizumab works by blocking the activity of a protein found in some tumors: programmed cell death protein 1 or PD-1.

Doing this helps the immune system recognize and attack these cancers.

Also known by the brand name Keytruda, it has been shown to be very effective in combating melanoma skin cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, kidney cancer, uterine cancer and cervical cancer, but only those that are positive for PD-1 or with other genetic markers.

Some people may have these cancers, but tests show that their tumors do not have PD-1, which means pembrolizumab is much less successful.

Due to the highly specific nature of the treatment, there is less damage to healthy body tissues. This means that patients often suffer far fewer side effects with immunotherapy than those caused by older treatments.

In the studies, pembrolizumab was administered by intravenous infusion in the hospital once every three weeks; However, Professor Arkenau says more recent research has shown that even fewer treatments are needed, with the same effect.

Each dose of pembrolizumab costs approximately £5,600, although the NHS may pay less for certain types of cancer (file photo)

He adds: ‘Immunotherapy generally does not cause the terrible nausea that can last for days after a chemotherapy treatment. There is a risk of the immune system overreacting, but this is fairly easily controlled with steroid medications.

Pembrolizumab, developed by Germany’s Merck, was approved in 2014. Each dose costs approximately £5,600, although the NHS may pay less for certain types of cancer.

Merck’s patent will expire in 2028, meaning other companies will be free to make virtually identical drugs, driving down the price.

Professor Arkenau says: “At the moment, pembrolizumab is expensive and is therefore only offered if other more standard treatments have not worked; however, we know that it also works as a first-line treatment.” When it goes off patent it will no doubt be offered even more widely on the NHS.’