Doctors are hailing a breakthrough in cancer treatment after new drugs have been found to clear tumors in cases of advanced lung cancer.
One of the most deadly cancers, lung cancer has a low survival rate since it often spreads to other organs by the time it’s discovered, meaning that within a few months sufferers are usually dead.
But recently trialed drugs have shown extraordinary results clearing tumors in people in advanced stages of the disease.
A quarter of 129 patients with advanced lung cancer have survived at least two years after being treated with new drugs, called nivolumab, according to the Daily Mail.
Nivolumab is one of a new generation of cancer drugs known as anti-PD1s and anti-PDL1s.
In most cases tumors cloak themselves in a way that the body’s immune system is tricked into thinking that they pose no threat.
The anti-PD1s and anti-PDL1s drugs work by helping the body’s immune system recognize the tumor as an enemy.
They have also been used to successfully treat skin cancer.
“You would expect patients in that group to survive a few months, if you’re lucky. So to get 24 per cent living two years is extraordinary,” Dr. Mick Peake of Glenfield Hospital in Leicester, England told the paper.
Peake said he saw one man whose lung cancer had spread to his liver, brain, bones and adrenal glands. Yet after a course of treatment with the new drugs there was no more evidence of the disease, he said.
This article originally appeared on News.com.au.