What is the current treatment for Gestational trophoblastic disease (GTD) ?
The majority of patients with GTD will be cured with one or two relatively non-toxic single agent chemotherapeutic drugs. These do not have many side effects and no long term effect on the body.
However, some patients will require much more toxic multi-drug chemotherapy treatment which do have considerable side effects such as increased susceptibility to infections and hair loss, as well as longer term problems such as an earlier menopause resulting in fertility issues. However, early diagnosis and kinder treatment can save this.
We are currently trying to develop ways to avoid the use of toxic multi-drug chemotherapy treatments which will save women from these devastating side-effects as well as save lives.
What is the GTD trial?
This trial will offer patients immunotherapy treatment instead of multi-agent chemotherapy to try and cure their disease. The trial will combine Pembrolizumab, an immunotherapy drug, with one of the single chemotherapy drugs normally used to treat this cancer. It is already used to treat other cancers such as melanoma and kidney cancer.
Immunotherapy is a type of cancer treatment that helps your immune system to fight cancer. It helps your immune system recognise and fight cancer cells. Immunotherapy educates the immune system to recognise and attack specific cancer cells and boost immune cells to help them eliminate cancer.
From previous small scale studies, we expect that the side effects will be milder than traditional multi-agent chemotherapy treatment, making it more tolerable for patients and to cure their cancer.
This trial is needed to provide evidence that immunotherapy is effective in curing the disease and the researchers hope this evidence will convince the NHS to make this a standard line of treatment for women who have not been cured with single agent chemotherapy.
Melody’s GTD Story
Melody Ransome, a mum of two, was diagnosed with Gestational trophoblastic disease when she was 39 years old in September 2012. She had no idea pregnancy could lead to cancer.
Over the next three years Melody endured 13 rounds of chemotherapy, two stem cell transplants which nearly killed her, and major lung surgery at Charing Cross Hospital.
In April 2015 part-way through another chemotherapy cycle, Melody thought she wasn’t going to make it, but was given a lifeline to trial the immunotherapy drug Pembrolizumab which had not been used to treat cancer before. After three weeks of treatment, Melody started to feel better with no side effects and after further treatment over the next few months she was miraculously in remission.
“Every day I am grateful for my life and cherish my time with my children. This has been a challenging journey and one I could only have made because of Professor Seckl and the team at Charing Cross Hospital, to whom I am eternally grateful.”
Read more about her remarkable story here:
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