Twenty-seven skin cancer sufferers in Ireland are taking part in a ground-breaking worldwide clinical trial of a drug treatment that has shown an almost five-fold increase in survival rates.
The global trial involving 7,000 people has confirmed that a combination of two innovative drugs, nivolumab and ipilimumab, leads to dramatically improved survival rates.
Twenty-seven Irish people at hospitals in two sites in Dublin, and in Galway and Cork, are among those taking part in the latest phase of the trial.
Nearly 630 people are diagnosed with melanoma in Ireland each year, and it leads to 110 deaths in the country annually.
It is hoped that the combination drug treatment could be available to skin cancer patients in Ireland as soon as next year.
The cost per patient could start at €80,000.
The findings of the study were released at the 50th annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago.
The study found cancer survival rates of 94% and 88% after one and two years using the combination of treatments of two drugs, which is up from existing rates of 40% and 20% respectively.
