Terminal cancer patients could be treated more successfully and even cured by being placed into hibernation, a leading expert claims.

Scientists have found that allowing the body to enter a state of torpor significantly protects it against the toxic effects of radiotherapy. And it stops tumours from growing.

It would allow oncologists to use higher doses of radiation to kill off cancer cells without harming the patient. Italian scientists said the novel approach could one day help tens of thousands of Britons whose disease is no longer treatable.

The process has been so successful in rats that they are now planning to test it in humans and hope the treatment will be available within 10 years.

Professor Marco Durante, from the National Institute of Nuclear Physics, said: “Around 50 per cent of cancer patients have advanced cancer, so it is a large number.