SOUTHAMPTON is to help spearhead an international trial which will look to help improve the lives of bladder cancer patients.

The first UK patients have now been recruited to take part in tests looking at whether an immunotherapy treatment could improve the long-term outcomes following radiotherapy for those suffering from the disease.

Named the BL-13 trial, it is being led by Dr Simon Crabb at the CRUK Southampton Clinical Trials Unit, based within the University of Southampton’s Centre for Cancer Immunology.

Around 10,000 people are diagnosed with bladder cancer each year in the UK. If the cancer has invaded the muscle wall of the bladder, patients require treatment with chemotherapy followed by either a course of radiotherapy or a cystectomy (surgery to remove the bladder), a procedure which may impact on their quality of life.

The aim of these treatments is to cure the cancer. But some patients will relapse, and the cancer will return, at which point treatment options are limited and patients will generally die from the disease.

This is how this new trial is hoping to help

All those taking part are patients that have opted for the radiotherapy approach to treatment. Now, half are to be given an immunotherapy called Durvalumab, in order to boost their immune system to fight the cancer.

Dr Crabb said: “Immunotherapy has already been shown to be an effective treatment in people who have advanced, incurable bladder cancer. What this trial will do is test whether patients with disease at an earlier stage may benefit from having immunotherapy added as part of their curative treatment process following chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

“The hope is that by priming the body’s own immune system to spot cancer cells, this immunotherapy will help it fight the disease and hopefully reduce the risk of cancer relapse in these patients.”

The BL-13 study originated from the Canadian Clinical Trials Group. and the trial has already opened in Canada and Spain. The CRUK Southampton Clinical Trials Unit is running the UK part of the study with the first patients recruited at University Hospital Southampton, the Royal Marsden Hospital and the Royal Cornwall Hospital. The trial is also open at the Christie in Manchester, with several more sites due to open in the coming months.

The trial is being funded by therapeutics company AstraZeneca. who make Durvalumab and has been endorsed by Cancer Research UK, which allows the trial team access to NHS resources to assist in running the study.