Source: The Telegraph >> Read Full Article and Comment

A pioneering new treatment which could stop cancer returning in children is to be tested in Britain in the largest trial of its kind in the world.

Doctors believe that they can prevent the recurrence of tumours, and effectively ‘cure’ patients, by boosting the power of the body’s own immune system.

The trial has received the support of Simon Cowell, the X Factor judge, who last month helped fund a British girl, Sophie Atay, to travel to America to receive the experimental treatment.

If successful the therapy could become a standard treatment for some forms of childhood cancer within five years, Cancer Research UK (CRUK), which is funding the new trial, predicts.

It will be tested on 160 patients, all at a high risk of their cancer returning.

The trial will use a form of treatment called ‘immunotherapy’, in which the body’s own immune system is harnessed to better fight off the cancer.

Patients will be given a modified version of human cells, called antibodies, which the immune system makes when it detects rogue cancer cells.

But many tumour cells are difficult to spot and can pass unnoticed by the body’s defences.

The antibodies will attach themselves to the cancer cells and then act as a beacon attracting the rest of the body’s natural immune system.

Antibodies have successfully been used in a small number of adult cancers, including bowel and breast cancer, but this is the first time that the therapy would be proven effective in children.

The treatment will be tested on youngsters with neuroblastoma, one of the most deadly childhood cancers, which attacks the nervous system and affects around 100 children under five every year … Continue Reading