A DRUG treatment trialled in Swindon could mean longer survival rates for cancer patients.

According to initial results presented to the American Society of Hematology this week, a compound of the drug obinutuzumab, used with chemotherapy to treat people with follicular lymphoma, can slow the progression of the disease by 34 per cent compared to the current drug.

Experts were also told that after treatment 92 per cent of patients being given the treatment showed no detectable sign of the cancer in their blood or bone marrow.

Lymphoma is one of the most common form of cancers and follicular lymphoma is the most common slow-growing form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. It affects the lymphatic system, causing symptoms like enlarged lymph nodes, fatigue and weight loss and happens when the body makes abnormal white blood cells.

Dr Norbert Blesing, consultant haematologist at the Great Western Hospital, said the current drug rituximab had been a game-changer in the treatment of the condition. But the new compound, which has the trade name Gazyvaro, appeared to have the potential to do more.

“It seems to create a deeper remission level,” he said. It causes cells affected by the disease to self-destruct as well as be attacked and destroyed by the immune system.

Around eight patients in the Swindon area took part in the nationwide commercial trial held under the auspices of the National Cancer Research Institute.

Dr Blesing stressed it was still early days, although the trial had ended. “There is no overall survival data available to see. What matters to patients and doctors is: do patients live longer?”

However the patients would continue to be monitored and it would become clearer over time whether the initial promise it showed would be fulfilled.

Dr Robert Marcus, consultant haematologist at Kings College Hospital, said rituximab had virtually doubled that time compared to a decade ago.

“Most, if not all, of these patients will eventually relapse with subsequent remissions shorter than the first and the 20 per cent of patients relapsing within three years have a particularly poor prognosis. “This is why the results from the Gallium trial, where obinutuzumab-based chemotherapy was compared to rituximab-based treatment, are so important with a predicted increase in PFS to over eight years in patients in the obinutuzumab arm,” he said.