DRUGS OF CURE CANCER EXIST MAYBE
Terminally, cancer patients have been effectively cured by a game-changing new class of drugs.
In one trial, more than half of patients who had just months to live saw deadly tumours shrink or completely disappear.
In recent days, the results of trials of a number of treatments which harness the bodys immune system have been announced at the American Society of Clinical Oncologys annual conference in Chicago. They show promise in the fight against skin cancer and lung disease.
But results from a slew of trials released last night at the conference showed spectacular effects against a multitude of cancers.
Experts said the advances suggest terminally ill patients with common cancers including lung, bowel, ovarian and womb could in future be cured by the therapies.
The evidence in favour of the radical drugs is so overwhelming that they could save tens of thousands of lives in the UK within a decade, it is claimed.
Cancers develop because they manage to hide from the immune system and disguise the danger they pose. Immunotherapy works by making the cancer visible again and alerting the bodys immune system to the danger, Prof Johnston said. Patients who began some of the earliest trials 10 years ago appeared to have been cured, he added.