Bladder cancer sufferers given new drug hope

A NEW drug combination that can nearly double the survival rates of people with bladder cancer is being rolled out by the NHS.

- By Hanna Geissler Health Editor

The treatment will be given to around 1,250 patients in England each year with the aim of buying them extra time thanks to a two-pronged attack on the disease.

The first drug, enfortumab vedotin, targets and kills cancer cells while the second, pembrolizumab, boosts the immune system’s ability to recognise any remaining traces of the illness.

Both drugs will be given via intravenous infusion to patients whose bladder cancer has spread or cannot be surgically removed.

Precious

Professor Peter Johnson, NHS England’s national clinical director for cancer, hailed the treatment as “one of the most hopeful advances in decades for people with bladder cancer”.