One drug, known as ipilimumab, is a type of ...

Rates of skin cancer is increasing faster in Britain than any other type

disease and its overwhelmingly affects adolescents and young adults. Each year,

some 11 700 people diagnosed with the most serious form, malignant

melanoma and about 2,000 die after cancer spread to their bodies in the

-advanced or metastatic phase. But despite the growing threat that can kill within a few months,

only treatment available was an old-fashioned type of chemotherapy

dacarbazine, which has been in operation since 1970 and is not considered as

particularly effective experts. Now patients have new hope for two new types of potentially

life-saving treatment. One drug, known as ipilimumab, is a type of immunotherapy, which aims to teach

The immune system, as do melanomas and may offer the greatest hope for the

the general treatment. Treatment, developed by Bristol-Myers Squibb, is taken four times

three months in the intravenous infusion. In the results presented at ASCO-loud conference in Chicago on Sunday,

The company said that 47. 3 percent of patients in clinical trials who received

ipilimumab and dacarbazine were alive a year later, compared with 36. 3

percent, which simply took the traditional chemotherapy. A total of 20. 8 percent of those taking the new drug survived for friction

years, compared with 12. 2 percent of the others. Ipilimumab has already been given in some British patients under

compassionate use scheme, with one woman to survive for five years until now,

and was approved by the Administration Drug Food in America,

, where the cost of the course is $ 120 000 (73 500) per patient levaquin side effects nausea.