Bladder cancer patients given an immunotherapy drug are a third less likely to see disease come back and are more likely to survive, according to a “game-changer” study.
Patients with advanced (muscle-invasive) bladder cancer had significantly less risk of cancer progressing or returning when treated with durvalumab, and were more likely to still be alive two years after treatment.
Experts from the University of Sheffield and Barts Cancer Institute at Queen Mary University of London included 1,063 patients with operable bladder cancer in their study.
Patients were given either standard chemotherapy (cisplatin and gemcitabine) and surgery (530 people), or chemotherapy plus durvalumab before surgery and eight cycles of durvalumab after surgery (533).
The final-stage phase 3 clinical trial found patients were…