13 January 2025
Survival rates for patients with operable bladder cancer are significantly improved by adding an immunotherapy drug to before and after surgery, a major clinical trial has revealed.
Results of the phase 3 clinical trial, which was led by researchers at the University of Sheffield and Barts Cancer Institute at Queen Mary University of London and ran across the globe including at Weston Park Cancer Centre, found that patients were 32 per cent less likely to experience disease progression, recurrence, not undergoing surgery, or death when treated with the drug durvalumab, in addition to routine chemotherapy and surgery, compared to those treated with chemotherapy and surgery alone.
Overall survival rates were also 25 per cent higher among those treated with durvalumab.
Bladder cancer is the 9th most common form of cancer in the UK, with 17,000 new cases and 5,000 deaths in England each year, however survival rates for bladder cancer have not improved in the UK for many years.
Bladder cancer has the highest lifetime treatment costs per patient of all cancers. This is due to the high recurrence rate and ongoing invasive monitoring.
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Ian Flower, 63, from Sheffield took part in the NIAGARA trial which was run at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust after being diagnosed with operable bladder cancer.
“I was happy to help with the trial, not just for myself but in the hope that it could help other patients,” said Ian.
“The staff at Weston Park were brilliant. It is nice to hear the trial received positive results and I hope it can become available for other patients.”
The international NIAGARA phase 3 clinical trial was funded and led by AstraZeneca. The trial was conducted across the globe including Weston Park Cancer Centre, based at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, in Sheffield. The results are published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
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Durvalumab was generally well tolerated and no new safety signals were observed in this study. Grade 3 and 4 adverse events due to any cause occurred in 69 per cent of patients treated with durvalumab and 68 per cent of patients in the comparator arm.
The Sheffield team now want to understand which patients benefit most from this type of treatment. For this they are running a new trial - the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) GUSTO trial led by Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which uses genomic subtypes to direct a more personalised treatment approach.
ENDS