Hampshire scientists make breakthrough to help mesothelioma patients live longer

PATIENTS with asbestos-related cancer may live longer thanks to a breakthrough from scientists.
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Research into a new immunotherapy drug, trialled in Southampton’s clinical trial unit funded by Cancer Research UK, showed increased survival rates of people diagnosed with mesothelioma, linked to breathing in asbestos fibres.

Patients are usually treated with chemotherapy, surgery or radiotherapy but treatment options start to become limited once people stop responding to their treatment.

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The drug, nivolumab, saw trial participants’ risk of cancer progressing reduce by 39 per cent. Their cancer did not worsen for three months. Members of the placebo group, who did not receive nivolumab, saw a worsening much quicker – after 1.8 months.

David Smith from ChichesterDavid Smith from Chichester
David Smith from Chichester

The disease, which takes many years to develop, is particularly high in areas where shipping and mining industries formerly thrived.

It has claimed 62 lives in Portsmouth in a four-year period alone.

For years there have been a number of asbestos-related disease cases in former Portsmouth Dockyard workers.

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Concerns were also raised for those working on Sea King helicopters at Vector Aerospace in Gosport after Ministry of Defence documents showed 90 separate components contained asbestos.

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David Smith, who worked as a boat builder, wardrobe fitter and replaced garage roofs, was diagnosed with mesothelioma four years ago and took part in the trial. The trial was named Confirm, and was funded by Stand Up To Cancer.

The 61-year-old, from Chichester, said: ‘Taking part in this trial has been excellent. I was facing a dire prognosis with just months to live and then along came the Confirm trial – I was thrown a lifeline.

‘I don’t know officially whether I had the placebo or nivolumab yet, but I believe it was the new drug because after just 12 weeks my scans showed great progress and the tumour had shrunk.

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‘I had a whole year where things had improved, but sadly now I am back to where I started again and my tumour had been growing steadily. Now I have the option of more chemotherapy again.’

Latest figures from the Health and Safety Executive show between 2014 and 2018, 57 men and five women died from mesothelioma in Portsmouth.

In East Hampshire 15 men and seven women died from the disease, 42 men and seven women in Fareham, 26 men and two women in Gosport, 30 men and five women in Havant and 21 men and nine women in Chichester.

Professor Gareth Griffiths is director of the Cancer Research UK Southampton Clinical Trials Unit, where the research was carried out.

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Prof Griffiths said: ‘This is the first study ever to show improved survival and we therefore believe that nivolumab could be a game-changer for treating mesothelioma patients in the future.’

During the Covid-19 pandemic, NHS England endorsed nivolumab for use in some people with malignant mesothelioma as an alternative to chemotherapy because it has less of a suppressive effect on the immune system.

It may reduce the risk of someone becoming seriously ill during the pandemic.

Researchers hope this option will be made permanent.

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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