Stunning ‘before’ and ‘after’ scans of cancer patient Ian Brooks released by the [b]Christie Hospital in Manchester[/b], looked almost too good to be true, writes the Health editor of [s]The Telegraph[/s]. Brooks has a rare, aggressive cancer called anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL), which other treatments had failed to control. With about 70 tumours throughout his body, he was thought to have only weeks to live.
He became the first patient outside the US to take part in a small, early phase trial of a new drug called [b]brentuximab[/b] – and the scans revealed that, after just 12 weeks of treatment, all the tumours had disappeared. At 47, he is now in full remission – as were well over half the patients who took part in the study. Its results, published last year, were so good that the drug has since been licensed for ALCL and is currently available through the [b]NHS Cancer Drugs Fund[/b].
[link url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/10671437/Targeted-treatment-offers-hope-to-cancer-patients.html]Full report in The Telegraph[/link]
[link url=http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/druginfo/fda-brentuximabvedotin]US National Cancer Institute: Federal Approval for Brentuximab Veddotin[/link]