A miracle drug that prevents deadly kidney cancer from returning is being offered to 80 percent of NHS patients with the disease

Patients with kidney cancer are being given a lifeline by an immune-boosting drug that dramatically reduces the risk of the disease returning – while it invariably proves fatal.

The injection, pembrolizumab, looks set to become the standard treatment given to patients after surgery after a trial showed a huge increase in survival rates.

Kidney cancer can only be cured with surgery in 60 percent of cases. However, if the disease returns, the outlook is bleak. Only 15 percent of patients survive longer than five years after a recurrence, and many die within two years.

Part of the problem is that kidney cancer does not respond to standard chemotherapy – the treatment usually given to kill cancer cells. It meant that doctors could only wait for the disease to return before offering medications, often to no avail.

But now the results of a large-scale clinical trial suggest that an injection of pembrolizumab every three weeks for a year increases patients’ chances of survival by 38 percent.

The drug works by helping the body’s immune system cells find and destroy tumors, and has already shown success in treating melanoma, skin cancer, bladder and lung cancer, and lymphoma – a type of blood cancer.

Pembrolizumab was first approved for use on the NHS for kidney cancer patients whose disease had returned in 2022, and alongside other targeted treatments called tyrosine kinase inhibitors, which stop the growth and division of cancer cells, it increased survival.

Prof. Tom Powles, director of the Barts Cancer Center in London, said: ‘Before we had pembrolizumab and the other targeted therapies, kidney cancer patients often died within a year of recurrence. This then improved to between two and five years.

‘Now we know that if we give people pembrolizumab immediately after surgery, and patients take it for a year, we can reduce the risk of death and cure more patients.’

Professor Powles predicts that up to 80 percent of kidney cancer patients could be offered pembrolizumab after surgery because it has been proven to be so effective.

Previously, one in 10 patients receiving pembrolizumab stopped taking it due to serious side effects, including diabetes, shortness of breath and thyroid problems. However, Professor Powles believes more patients could now be willing to endure these challenges as doctors can reassure them that it is likely to help them live longer.

“We have shown that there is a greater risk of death if you do not get pembrolizumab before the cancer comes back,” he says. ‘Patients will therefore be much more likely to undergo treatment that increases the chance of living longer.’

Retiree Chesney Lewis was one of 1,000 people who took part in the latest pembrolizumab trial and believes he was among half of the patients who received the drug instead of the placebo option. The 77-year-old, from Westcliffe-on-Sea in Essex, was diagnosed with kidney cancer in June 2018 during a routine screening for pancreatic cancer, which runs in his family.

A scan revealed he had stage four kidney cancer and he was taken to the Royal Free Hospital in London, where his kidney was removed the following week.

He says: ‘It just came out of the blue. I felt like a very lucky man that they discovered the cancer. I was shocked, but also relieved that it was handled immediately.”

He was asked if he wanted to participate in the study and received injections every three weeks for a year. Fortunately, he did not experience many side effects from his treatment.

He says: ‘Sometimes I felt tired and a bit lethargic, but it wasn’t too worrying. As far as I’m concerned, the whole experience was fantastic. Doctors saved my life by removing the kidney that had the cancer, and whatever treatment I had after that kept me from coming back.

‘It means I can be with my family, enjoy my retirement and not have to worry about cancer anymore.’