Tests reveal new drug combo could let pancreatic patients live FIVE YEARS longer
Around 4,600 Brits in the 50s are diagnosed with bowel cancer every year
A COMBINATION of two drugs could help cancer sufferers live longer.
Tests showed a five-year greater life expectancy in those with pancreatic cancer.
It comes as a charity claims thousands of lives could be saved if NHS bowel cancer screening started at 50 rather than 60.
Only five per cent of those with pancreatic cancer can live five years after diagnosis, and just one per cent ten years.
Each year 9,600 people are diagnosed and 8,800 die.
A trial involving more than 700 patients by Liverpool University found 29 per cent of those treated with the combination drugs lived at least five years.
Charity Pancreatic Cancer UK wants the treatment using gemcitabine and capecitabine made available across the NHS.
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Its head of research Leanne Reynolds said: “These results are a monumental leap forward.
“Golden opportunities like this do not come along often.”
Trial leader John Neoptolemos said: “This is one of the biggest ever breakthroughs prolonging survival for patients.”
Meanwhile, a bowel cancer charity says lowering the age of screening to 50 would boost early diagnosis, for which survival rates are 97 per cent.
Around 4,600 Brits in their 50s are diagnosed with bowel cancer each year.
Judith Brodie, of Beating Bowel Cancer, said they currently face a “diagnosis lottery”.
The Department of Health said bowel scope screening is to be offered to everyone at 55.