Cancer drug improves survival rates

A breast cancer drug can double two-year survival rates of patients with pancreatic cancer, trial results have shown.

Nab-paclitaxel, marketed as Abraxane, also increased the proportion of patients still alive after one year by 59 per cent. It is already approved for women with spreading breast cancer.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest cancers, killing 80 per cent of the 8,500 people diagnosed annually in the UK within a year.

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Data from a clinical trial showed significant improvements when patients were treated with Abraxane in combination with standard chemotherapy. Average survival increased from 6.7 months to 8.5 months. One year survival rates rose from 22 per cent to 35 per cent and at two years they doubled from four per cent to nine per cent.

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