NICE recommends Immuno-oncology treatment to help the body’s immune system detect and fight lung cancer

 Cancer conceals itself from your body; Immuno-oncology is a promising new advancement in cancer treatment that uses medicines that work with the immune system to reveal and attack cancer cells.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) announced today its recommendation for the use of Pembrolizumab – the first and only immunotherapy recommended by the Institute.

According to the Cancer Research Institute, Immunotherapy is the most promising cancer treatment of our time, and with Pembrolizumab being the first ever immunotherapy treatment to be approved in the UK, it gives late stage lung cancer patients another option than palliative care.

Data gathered from a clinical study by MSD shows that pembrolizumab reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 50 percent compared to chemotherapy improving the overall survival of patients.

“MSD UK is really pleased with today’s NICE recommendation, which will see us working with the Cancer Drugs Fund so that patients can continue to access pembrolizumab as we further build our knowledge of its longer-term outcomes for patients,” said Louise Houson, UK Managing Director, MSD.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related mortality in the UK; only 5 per cent of lung cancer patients survive lung cancer for ten or more years in England and Wales, and the survival rate has changed very little in the last 40 years from 3% to 5%.