A cancer charity has welcomed “exciting preliminary results” in trials of an immune system-boosting drug which left some patients free of the disease.

A study published in the journal Science showed low doses of drug Blinatumomab were effective in treating non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

The medication works by interacting with T cells, a type of white blood cell, which then destroy the cancerous cells.
Chief Clinician of Cancer Research UK Peter Johnson said: “Lymphoma was the first malignancy in which antibodies were shown to be effective treatment.

“These exciting preliminary results come from using them to harness the body’s own immune responses in a new way. Although the side effects need to be monitored carefully we hope that this type of treatment will prove to be effective in larger trials in the future.”

Giving a patient as little as 0.005mg of Blinatumomab per day eliminated some cancerous cells in the blood, and tumours shrank or disappeared completely with 0.015mg.

Four out of the 38 patients studied were left disease free after the trial, one for more than a year.

There is now hope that drug could have potential in treating other cancers.

Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma is a cancer of the lymphatic system – a network of vessels which carry white blood cells around the body.

About 10,000 cases are diagnosed each year, and it is the sixth most common type of cancer in the UK.