More than 1,000 patients living with bladder cancer in England will be eligible for a treatment which can double survival rates from the disease.
In England, 18,000 people are diagnosed with bladder cancer each year, and only about 10% of people with stage 4 bladder cancer will survive five years or more after they are diagnosed.
The treatment, enfortumab vedotin with pembrolizumab, has been approved for use on the NHS from Thursday. About 1,250 patients across the country to be offered the therapy, which has been described by NHS bosses as one of the “most hopeful advances in decades”.
Clinical trials of the drug have shown that people with bladder cancer that has spread (metastasised) live up to twice as long when given the combination antibody treatment when compared with those given normal chemotherapy.
One trial also found that almost 30% of patients had no detectable traces of cancer in their body following treatment with enfortumab vedotin and pembrolizumab, compared with only 12.5% with chemotherapy.
Prof Peter Johnson, NHS England’s national clinical director for cancer, said that the treatment is “one of the most hopeful advances in decades for people with bladder cancer”.
He added: “Bladder cancer is often difficult to treat once it has spread, but this new therapy is the first one in years to really help stop the disease in its tracks, and our rollout to NHS patients will make a huge difference to the lives of those affected and their families.”
The therapy works by enfortumab vedotin directly targeting the cancer cells and killing them, while pembrolizumab, an immunotherapy drug, helps the immune system recognise and fight the remaining cancer cells.
Life expectancy for people with bladder cancer which has metastasised is usually only just over a year, but this new therapy increased survival for people with this stage of the disease by more than one year.
Jeannie Rigby, the chief executive of Action Bladder Cancer UK, said the charity, “bladder cancer patients and their families welcome this much-needed, step forward in treatments available for this hard-to-treat cancer.
“This new drug has the potential to increase how long people have before their cancer gets worse and how long they live compared with the current, limited, treatment choices available. It’s also of importance that this treatment can mean these patients can experience a better quality of life with less hard to tolerate side effects.”
