Australian researchers are getting closer to a treatment against a rare form of cancer

"This combination therapy has completely changed the landscape of treating this disease," said Professor Dawson.

Early next month, at a meeting of the American Society of Hematology in San Diego, Professor Dawson and her colleagues will announce the success of a lab test on cancer cells suggesting that the Adding an additional drug to the combination could increase this success rate. almost 100%.

About 300 cases of mantle cell lymphoma are diagnosed each year in Australia. A genetic mutation causes the body to produce cancerous white blood cells – cells that normally fight infections.

Because of cancer, the cells are no longer able to defend the body. It kills most people diagnosed with this disease in four years; chemotherapy is often prescribed, but almost never works.

In April, after 30 years of research, Peter MacCallum and researchers at the Royal Melbourne Hospital announced that a new multi-drug regimen had put cancer in approximately 70% of patients in complete remission in two clinical trials major.

"This was unprecedented, this level of success had never been seen for this cancer," said Professor Dawson.

"But that still left us wondering: what about those 30% of patients who did not get a good answer or who responded shortly before relapsing? Could we know why they did not have the same answer?

The entrepreneur Hamish Petrie is part of this 30%. He had the combined therapy – which is not subsidized by the government and costs about $ 20,000 a month outside of a clinical trial, he said – which has almost completely eliminated his cancer .

But, while he was celebrating this success, he received a phone call. His cancer had DNA markers related to resistance. It was just a matter of time before he came back.

At Peter MacCallum, Professor Dawson led the DNA profiles of patients involved in one of the successful clinical trials.

Anyone who did not respond to the treatment seemed to share the same DNA mutation, she said, which allowed cancer to produce a protein that allowed it to resist drugs.

She discovered that adding another drug suppressing protein to combination therapy meant the elimination of resistant cancer cells.

If the method works in humans – clinical trials will begin next year – mantle cell lymphoma could be an important step towards healing.

This trial is good news because it means people may not have to live through what he has experienced, Petrie said.

He has received a bone marrow transplant, an intensive last resort treatment option – but it seems remarkably that it has healed him.

If he had not had the transplant, "at about that time, I would have a relapse," he said.

"This new therapy is extremely important. This disease is a disease that keeps coming back to you. I believe this discovery will eventually see the end of chemotherapy as a default treatment for this condition – this new therapy will become the norm.

"I am extremely optimistic about the future of it."