A new approach to treating anal cancer will be safer and more effective for people than the current most widely used treatment in the UK, a study has found.

Around 1,300 people are diagnosed with anal cancer each year in the UK and that figure rises around 3% each year.

Because the number of patients being treated is relatively small, there has so far been very limited evidence to guide doctors in making treatment decisions.

Researchers at the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust found that a new chemo treatment for anal cancer was better in terms of survival rates and safety (Picture: Getty)

But researchers at the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, which ran the international phase II trial, said their findings will set a new standard of care for the rare cancer type.




They analysed data from 91 patients across the UK, Norway, the US and Australia and found patients with advanced anal cancer lived seven months longer overall using the new treatment, to those on the current treatment plan.

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The new treatment involved using a combination of chemotherapy medicine carboplatin and paclitaxel, which is primarily used to treat other cancers, including ovarian, womb and lung cancer.

It performed better overall compared to the current chemotherapy treatment with cisplatin and 5-fluorouracil – both in terms of survival rates and safety.

The findings are being presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress in Munich, Germany.

The new treatment uses a combination of chemotherapy medicine carboplatin and paclitaxel, which is primarily used to treat ovarian, womb and lung cancer (Picture: Getty)

Study chief investigator Dr Sheela Rao, consultant medical oncologist at the Royal Marsden, said: ‘The results of this study will immediately change patient care.

‘While treatment with cisplatin and 5-fluorouracil was generally considered a reasonable option for advanced anal cancer, we now know that carboplatin and paclitaxel is more effective and better tolerated.

‘In our study, these patients lived seven months longer overall.

‘Around 30% of people with anal cancer will develop advanced disease which cannot be treated surgically, and all of these patients are eligible to receive this chemotherapy combination.’

Study co-author, professor David Sebag-Montefiore, an anal cancer expert for Cancer Research UK, said: ‘Making progress in rare cancers is incredibly difficult, so it’s very exciting to see these results which, in my opinion, are practice changing.

Researchers said that making progress in rare cancers is extremely difficult, so the findings were promising (Picture: Getty)

‘This important research informs both patients and their cancer teams that the combination of the chemotherapy drugs carboplatin and paclitaxel should be first line treatment for advanced anal cancer.

‘This study also shows the benefit of international collaboration within the IRCI – it can deliver results in rare diseases that individual countries cannot achieve on their own.’

Professor David Cunningham, director of the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at the Royal Marsden and the Institute of Cancer Research, London, said: ‘These findings set a new standard of care and highlight the importance of international collaboration for advances in the treatment of rare cancers.

‘We now have the backbone for future trials into novel treatments for advanced anal cancer, including immunotherapy.’

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