Skin cancer vaccine coming to UK

A CONTROVERSIAL new vaccine treatment for the potentially fatal skin cancer melanoma is to be made available in Britain after American doctors claimed it gave a better success rate than conventional treatments.

Dozens of desperately ill Britons are already travelling to California once a month for the vaccine, pioneered by Dr Donald Morton of the John Wayne Institute in Los Angeles.

Now a leading British cancer expert, Prof Gus Dalgleish of St George's Hospital, London, plans to bring the vaccine to Britain within the year. He stresses it is not a cure for cancer, but says that of 700 patients with advanced cases of melanoma who have had the vaccine, 20 per cent have survived five years, compared with a 5 to 6 per cent response with conventional treatments.

Dr Morton uses cancerous cells from other patients to "kick-start" the immune system. The cells are irradiated so that they are still alive but cannot grow. They are then injected into new patients, triggering the production of antibodies by the immune system, stimulating them to destroy both the injected cells and the malignant tumours already in the body.

But other cancer experts in Britain say the vaccine's efficacy will not be known until full randomised clinical trials are carried out with large numbers of people. The US authorities have not yet given consent to this.

Nick Wright, director of clinical research at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, said: "When every new treatment is announced, people clamber on to the bandwagon. Until we have had randomised trials it is all anecdotal." Moyra Beaves, 49, general manager of the Sheraton Belgravia Hotel in London, has been travelling to the US since October last year to receive treatment from Dr Morton.

Her cancer was diagnosed in 1994. and doctors gave her little hope, but "I went to three top cancer specialists and each of them said the same thing: 'Put your affairs in order, go round the world and if you're lucky you've got six to nine months.'"

After trying various other therapies in this country without success, last year she met Ian Gordon, the husband of the first British patient to undergo the vaccine treatment in California, and decided to see if Dr Morton would treat her. She has now paid four visits to Los Angeles and is due to return to Los Angeles this week for her fifth treatment. A scan of her liver has shown some moderate tumour growth but she remains optimistic: "I live my life in three-month segments and for the last three months I have been completely believing in the vaccine programme. Negative thoughts are wasted thoughts. Everything I try I try believing I'm going to win."

"The response from patients is very strong," said Prof Dalgleish: "It's not a cure for cancer but 20 per cent survive up to five years and 50 per cent benefit in some way. There's still a lot of people who don't benefit but it does seem to increase patients' chances."

Other cancer experts in Britain said such claims should be treated with caution. Prof Wright said: "We cannot talk in terms of cures. We can only talk in terms of five-year survival rates, 10-year, 20-year... It has yet to be seen whether it works. They've got to do clinical trials. These are exciting ideas but it takes a long time before we learn whether they are effective. It's best to be very cautious. It could be various things that cause it."

Prof Gordon McVie, scientific director of the Cancer Research Campaign, agreed, saying that such ideas were "incredibly interesting" but that full trials were essential. Previous experimental treatments had shown great promise early on, but after full trials they had been found wanting, he said. "We can't just say it works. We need a healthy dose of scepticism."

Horizon, 8pm BBC2 tomorrow,will follow other patients who visit Dr Morton.