A recent landmark clinical trial has revealed that a significant number of head and neck cancer patients could live longer without cancer recurrence with the help of an immunotherapy drug.
The findings of this trial are being hailed as a breakthrough for patients with these difficult-to-treat cancers, which have seen little progress in treatment over the past 20 years, according to the scientists behind the research.
Forty-five-year-old Laura Marston, who underwent surgery for advanced tongue cancer diagnosed six years ago, says she is “amazed to still be here.” She received immunotherapy both before and after her surgery.
Her diagnosis was made in 2019 after a persistent ulcer on her tongue. At the time, she was given just a 30 per cent chance of survival.
Researchers observed that immunotherapy helps train the body to defend itself and attack if the cancer returns, as demonstrated in Laura’s case.
The Institute of Cancer Research in London, together with an international team of experts, conducted the study to explore new treatment options. Laura was one of 350 patients who were given the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab before and after surgery to prime the body’s defences.
This marks a major step forward in cancer treatment, as head and neck cancers are notoriously difficult to treat, with treatment methods having changed very little in nearly two decades.
More than half of patients diagnosed with advanced head and neck cancers have not survived beyond five years.
Laura defied the odds, recovering from a complex surgery in which part of her tongue and lymph nodes in her neck were removed. She later relearned how to speak and eat.
Other patients in the study also reported that their advanced cancers had not spread to other parts of the body.
Around 12,800 new head and neck cancer cases are diagnosed in the UK each year.
This new approach has shown promising results, doubling the average length of time patients remain cancer-free—from around 2.5 years to five years.
Additionally, patients who received pembrolizumab had a 10 per cent lower risk of their cancer returning elsewhere in the body after three years.
“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,” explained Professor Kevin Harrington, who led the landmark trial in the UK.
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